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The Great slight the men of wit, who have nothing but wit the men of wit despise the Great, who have nothing but greatness the good man pities them both, if with greatness or wit they have not virtue.

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
Greatness
Virtue
Nothing
Great
Pities
Good
Slight
Men
Despise
Wit
Pity

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We are more sociable, and get on better with people by the heart than the intellect.
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Friendship * * * is a long time in forming, it is of slow growth, through many trials and months of familiarity.
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No vice exists which does not pretend to be more or less like some virtue, and which does not take advantage of this assumed resemblance.
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Hatred is so lasting and stubborn, that reconciliation on a sickbed certainly forebodes death.
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Love seizes us suddenly, without giving warning, and our disposition or our weakness favors the surprise one look, one glance, from the fair fixes and determines us.
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Mockery is often the result of a poverty of wit.
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It is virtue which should determine us in the choice of our friends, without inquiring into their good or evil fortune.
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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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Great things astonish us, and small dishearten us. Custom makes both familiar.
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The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.
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Widows, like ripe fruit, drop easily from their perch.
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He who can wait for what he desires takes the course not to be exceedingly grieved if he fails of it he, on the contrary, who labors after a thing too impatiently thinks the success when it comes is not a recompense equal to all the pains he has been at about it.
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Misers are neither relations, nor friends, nor citizens, nor Christians, nor perhaps even human beings.
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To give awkwardly is churlishness. The most difficult part is to give, then why not add a smile?
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Next to sound judgment, diamonds and pearls are the rarest things in the world.
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There are some men who turn a deaf ear to reason and good advice, and willfully go wrong for fear of being controlled.
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Nothing more clearly shows how little God esteems his gift to men of wealth, money, position and other worldly goods, than the way he distributes these, and the sort of men who are most amply provided with them.
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Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches their burden would be too heavy for us we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, quiet, honor and conscience, to obtain them: It is to pay so dear from them that the bargain is a loss.
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It is too much for a husband to have a wife who is a coquette and sanctimonious as well she should select only one of those qualities.
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He who knows how to wait for what he desires does not feel very desperate if he fails in obtaining it and he, on the contrary, who is very impatient in procuring a certain thing, takes so much pains about it, that, even when he is successful, he does not think himself sufficiently rewarded.
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