French philosopher and moralist (1645-1696)
To how many girls has a great beauty been of no other use but to make them expect a large fortune!
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Women", Les Caractères
The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
Les Caractères ou les Moeurs de ce siecle
False modesty is the last refinement of vanity.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Nothing is easier for passion than to overcome reason, but the greatest triumph is to conquer a man's own interests.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
I am not astonished that men who lean, as it were, on an atom, should stumble at the smallest efforts they make for discovering the truth ; that, being so short-sighted, they do not reach beyond the heavens and the stars, to contemplate God Himself.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Freethinkers", Les Caractères
Friendship can exist between persons of different sexes, without any coarse or sensual feelings; yet a woman always looks upon a man as a man, and so a man will look upon a woman as a woman.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
A preacher must have some intelligence to charm the people by his florid style, by his exhilarating system of morality, by the repetition of his figures of speech, his brilliant remarks and vivid descriptions ; but, after all, he has not too much of it, for if he possessed some of the right quality he would neglect these extraneous ornaments, unworthy of the Gospel, and preach naturally, forcibly, and like a Christian.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Pulpit", Les Caractères
A great mind is above insults, injustice, grief, and raillery, and would be invulnerable were it not open to compassion.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères
A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune, and favor cannot satisfy him.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères
Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than native genius. In the hands of a man who has read widely but lacks judgment, applied to certain subjects it can corrupt both its readers and the writer himself.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
For a long time visits among lovers and professions of love are kept up through habit, after their behavior has plainly proved that love no longer exists.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
The same amount of pride which makes a man treat haughtily his inferiors, makes him cringe servilely; to those above him.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Gifts of Fortune", Les Caractères
Anything is a temptation to those who dread it.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Women", Les Caractères
The critics, or those who, thinking themselves so, decide deliberately and decisively about all public representations, group and divide themselves into different parties, each of whom admires a certain poem or a certain music and damns all others, urged on by a wholly different motive than public interest or justice. The ardour with which they defend their prejudices damages the opposite party as well as their own set. These men discourage poets and musicians by a thousand contradictions, and delay the progress of arts and sciences, by depriving them of the advantages to be obtained by that emulation and freedom which many excellent masters, each in their own way and according to their own genius, might display in the execution of some very fine works.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
Nothing resembles today so much as tomorrow.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE
attributed, Day's Collacon
That man is good who does good to others; if he suffers on account of the good he does, he is very good; if he suffers at the hands of those to whom he has done good, then his goodness is so great that it could be enhanced only by greater sufferings; and if he should die at their hands, his virtue can go no further: it is heroic, it is perfect.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères
A man of variable mind is not one man, but several men in one; he multiplies himself as often as he changes his taste and manners; he is not this minute what he was the last, and will not be the next what he is now; he is his own successor.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères
It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères
Marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères