Quote

It seems to me that the spirit of politeness is a certain attention in causing that, by our words and by our manners, others may be content with us and with themselves.

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
Content
Attention
Words
Spirit
Others
Certain
Politeness
Seems
Causing
May
Manners

More quotes by Jean de la Bruyere

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For some people, speaking and giving offence are one and the same thing. They are spiteful and bitter their style is infused with gall and wormwood mockery, abuse and insults flow from their lips like spittle.
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We should only endeavour to think and speak correctly ourselves, without wishing to bring others over to our taste and opinions.
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There are certain people who so ardently and passionately desire a thing, that from dread of losing it they leave nothing undone to make them lose it.
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The State not seldom tolerates a comparatively great evil to keep out millions of lesser ills and inconveniences which otherwise would be inevitable and without remedy.
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Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatic. The man who knows nothing thinks he is teaching others what he has just learned himself the man who knows a great deal can't imagine that what he is saying is not common knowledge, and speaks more indifferently.
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Party loyalty lowers the greatest men to the petty level of the masses.
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Caprice in women often infringes upon the rules of decency.
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A man who is free and unmarried, if he has some intelligence, can rise above his fortune, mingle in society and meet the best people on an equal footing. This is harder for a married man: marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.
Jean de la Bruyere
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A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.
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We seldom repent of speaking little, very often of speaking too much: a vulgar and trite maxim, which all the world knows and, but which all the world does not practice
Jean de la Bruyere
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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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Some people pretend they never were in love and never wrote poetry two weaknesses which they dare not own -- one of the heart, the other of the mind.
Jean de la Bruyere
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Anything is a temptation to those who dread it.
Jean de la Bruyere
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When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it.
Jean de la Bruyere
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People reveal their character even in the simplest things they do. Fools do not enter a room, nor leave it, nor sit down, nor rise, nor are they silent, nor do they stand up, like people of sense and understanding.
Jean de la Bruyere
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This great misfortune, to be incapable of solitude.
Jean de la Bruyere
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The finest and most beautiful ideas on morals and manners have been swept away before our times, and nothing is left for us but to glean after the ancients and the ablest amongst the moderns.
Jean de la Bruyere
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The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discloses to me His existence. [Fr., L'impossibilite ou je suis de prouver que Dieu n'est pas, me decouvre son existence.]
Jean de la Bruyere
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Caprice in woman is the antidote to beauty.
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