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

More quotes by Jean de la Bruyere

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Laziness begat wearisomeness, and this put men in quest of diversions, play and company, on which however it is a constant attendant he who works hard, has enough to do with himself otherwise.
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It is not so easy to obtain a reputation by a perfect work as to enhance the value of an indifferent one by a reputation already acquired.
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Children are contemptuous, haughty, irritable, envious, sneaky, selfish, lazy, flighty, timid, liars and hypocrites, quick to laugh and cry, extreme in expressing joy and sorrow, especially about trifles, they'll do anything to avoid pain but they enjoy inflicting it: little men already.
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The great gift of conversation lies less in displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others. He who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own cleverness is perfectly well pleased with you.
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Criticism is as often a trade as a science, requiring, as it does, more health than wit, more labour than capacity, more practice than genius.
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The fool only is troublesome. A plan of sense perceives when he is agreeable or tiresome he disappears the very minute before he would have been thought to have stayed too long.
Jean de la Bruyere
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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.
Jean de la Bruyere
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It is worse to apprehend than to suffer.
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Foolish jokers are thick on the ground, and it rains insects of that sort everywhere. A good joker is a rarity even a man who is such by nature finds it hard to sustain the part for long it seldom happens that the man who makes us laugh wins our esteem.
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In Friendship we only see those faults which may be prejudicial to our friends. In love we see no faults but those by which we suffer ourselves.
Jean de la Bruyere
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The most amiable people are those who least wound the self-love of others.
Jean de la Bruyere
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One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.
Jean de la Bruyere
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There are only three events in a man's life birth, life, and death he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.
Jean de la Bruyere
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Making a book is a craft, like making a clock it needs more than native wit to be an author.
Jean de la Bruyere
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Physiognomy is not a guide that has been given us by which to judge of the character of men: it may only serve us for conjecture. [Fr., La physionomie n'est pas une regle qui nous soit donnee pour juger des hommes elle nous peut servir de conjecture.]
Jean de la Bruyere
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Favor exalts a man above his equals, but his dismissal from that favor places him below them.
Jean de la Bruyere
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Rarely do they appear great before their valets.
Jean de la Bruyere
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The regeneration of society is the regeneration of society by individual education.
Jean de la Bruyere
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Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.
Jean de la Bruyere
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Men regret their life has been ill-spent, but this does not always induce them to make a better use of the time they have yet to live.
Jean de la Bruyere