Jean de La Bruyère
French moralist, 1645-1696
15 quotes.
Quotes by Jean de La Bruyère
- A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune, and favor cannot satisfy him.
- He is good that does good to others.
- He is poor whose expenses exceed his income.
- If you wish to be held in esteem, you must associate only with those who are estimable.
- It is a great misfortune not to have mind enough to talk well, nor judgment enough to be silent.
- It is easier to enrich ourselves with a thousand virtues, than to correct ourselves of a single fault.
- Out of difficulties grow miracles.
- The most amiable people are those who least wound the self-love of others.
- The most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures, consists in promoting the pleasure of others.
- The prodigal robs his heir, the miser robs himself. The middle way is, justice to ourselves and others.
- They who, without any previous knowledge of us, think amiss of us, do us no harm: they attack not us, but the phantom of their own imagination.
- Those who make the worst use of their time most complain of its shortness.
- To be free is not to do nothing, but to be the sole arbiter of what we do and what we leave undone.
- We are more sociable, and get on better with people by the heart than the intellect.
- We must laugh before we are happy, or else we may die before we ever laugh at all.