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We meet With few utterly dull and stupid souls: the sublime and transcendent are still fewer the generality of mankind stand between these two extremes: the interval is filled with multitudes of ordinary geniuses, but all very useful, and the ornaments and supports of the commonwealth.

Jean de la Bruyere

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Jean de la Bruyere
Age: 50 †
Born: 1645
Born: August 16
Died: 1696
Died: May 10
Aphorist
Essayist
French Moralist
Lawyer
Philosopher
Translator
Writer
Paris
France
Jean de La Bruyere
Stupid
Dull
Supports
Stand
Useful
Transcendent
Generality
Support
Souls
Multitudes
Interval
Two
Filled
Sublime
Generalities
Stills
Meet
Mediocrity
Geniuses
Still
Ordinary
Utterly
Ornaments
Soul
Genius
Fewer
Commonwealth
Mankind
Extremes
Intervals

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A person's worth in this world is estimated according to the value he puts on himself.
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A man must have very eminent qualities to hold his own without being polite.
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Among some people arrogance supplies the place of grandeur, inhumanity of decision, and roguery of intelligence.
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Children have neither past nor future and that which seldom happens to us, they rejoice in the present. [Fr., Les enfants n'ont ni passe ni avenir et, ce qui ne nous arrive guere, ils jouissent du present.]
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A prince wants only the pleasure of private life to complete his happiness.
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Most men spend the best part of their lives making the remaining part wretched.
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Next to sound judgment, diamonds and pearls are the rarest things in the world.
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There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience.
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It is a sad thing when men have neither enough intelligence to speak well nor enough sense to hold their tongues this is the root of all impertinence.
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It is worse to apprehend than to suffer.
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A man unattached and without wife, if he have any genius at all, may raise himself above his original position, may mingle with the world of fashion, and hold himself on a level with the highest this is less easy for him who is engaged it seems as if marriage put the whole world in their proper rank.
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We are more sociable, and get on better with people by the heart than the intellect.
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How much wit, good-nature, indulgences, how many good offices and civilities, are required among friends to accomplish in some years what a lovely face or a fine hand does in a minute!
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Rarely do they appear great before their valets.
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Amongst such as out of cunning hear all and talk little, be sure to talk less or if you must talk, say little.
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We never deceive for a good purpose: knavery adds malice to falsehood.
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The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things.
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It requires more than mere genius to be an author.
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I am not surprised that there are gambling houses, like so many snares laid for human avarice like abysses where many a man's money is engulfed and swallowed up without any hope of return like frightful rocks against which the gamblers are thrown and perish.
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The generality of men expend the early part of their lives in contributing to render the latter part miserable.
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