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I am told so many ill things of a man, and I see so few in him, that I begin to suspect he has a real but troublesome merit, as being likely to eclipse that of others.

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
Things
Merit
Men
Ill
Likely
Begin
Told
Eclipse
Others
Troublesome
Many
Suspect
Real
Suspects

More quotes by Jean de la Bruyere

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Languages are no more than the keys of Sciences. He who despises one, slights the other.
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We seldom repent talking little, but very often talking too much.
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If some persons died, and others did not die, death would be a terrible affliction.
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Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings.
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An egotist will always speak of himself, either in praise or in censure, but a modest man ever shuns making himself the subject of his conversation.
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If women were by nature what they make themselves by art if they were to lose suddenly all the freshness of their complexion, and their faces to become as fiery and as leaden as they make them with the red and the paint they besmear themselves with, they would consider themselves the most wretched creatures on earth.
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There are but three events which concern man: birth, life and death. They are unconscious of their birth, they suffer when they die, and they neglect to live.
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If you suppress the exorbitant love of pleasure and money, idle curiosity, iniquitous pursuits and wanton mirth, what a stillness would there be in the greatest cities.
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When we are young we lay up for old age when we are old we save for death.
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Extremes are vicious, and proceed from men compensation is just, and proceeds from God.
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He who will not listen to any advice, nor be corrected in his writings, is a rank pedant.
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A wise man neither suffers himself to be governed, nor attempts to govern others.
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A man can keep another's secret better than his own. A woman her own better than others.
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A man is thirty years old before he has any settled thoughts of his fortune it is not completed before fifty. He falls to building in his old age, and dies by the time his house is in a condition to be painted and glazed.
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If men wish to be held in esteem, they must associate with those only who are estimable.
Jean de la Bruyere
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A man starts upon a sudden, takes Pen, Ink, and Paper, and without ever having had a thought of it before, resolves within himself he will write a Book he has no Talent at Writing, but he wants fifty Guineas.
Jean de la Bruyere
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Eloquence may be found in conversations and in all kinds of writings it is rarely found when looked for, and sometimes discovered where it is least expected.
Jean de la Bruyere
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Love has this in common with scruples, that it becomes embittered by the reflections and the thoughts that beset us to free ourselves.
Jean de la Bruyere
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Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life. It is only found in men of sound sense and understanding.
Jean de la Bruyere
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We dread old age, which are not sure of being able to attain. [Fr., L'on craint la vieillesse, que l'on n'est pas sur de pouvoir atteindre.]
Jean de la Bruyere