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Absence
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No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends, as to give them no cause to miss him less.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Action(s)
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It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Ambition
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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.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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There are only two ways of getting on in the world: by one's own industry, or by the stupidity of others.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Authors & Writing
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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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Character
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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 Bruyere
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Charity
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The giving is the hardest part; what does it cost to add a smile?
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Conversation
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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.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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The sweetest of all sounds is that of the voice of the woman we love.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Criticism
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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 Bruyere
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Difficulty
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As favor and riches forsake a man, we discover in him the foolishness they concealed, and which no one perceived before.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Doctors
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As long as men are liable to die and are desirous to live, a physician will be made fun of, but he will be well paid.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Dogs
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You may drive a dog off the King's armchair, and it will climb into the preacher's pulpit; he views the world unmoved, unembarrassed, unabashed.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Excellence
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From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Fame
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There is not in the world so toilsome a trade as the pursuit of fame; life concludes before you have so much as sketched your work.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Friends
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Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Generosity
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Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Goodness
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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 Bruyere
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Greatness & Great Things
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False greatness is unsociable and remote: conscious of its own frailty, it hides, or at least averts its face, and reveals itself only enough to create an illusion and not be recognized as the meanness that it really is. True greatness is free, kind, familiar and popular; it lets itself be touched and handled, it loses nothing by being seen at close quarters; the better one knows it, the more one admires it.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Grief, Grieving
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Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Grief that is dazed and speechless is out of fashion: the modern woman mourns her husband loudly and tells you the whole story of his death, which distresses her so much that she forgets not the slightest detail about it.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Humility
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A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Humor
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Jesting is often only indigence of intellect.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Innovation
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Everything has been said, and we have come too late, now that men have been living and thinking for seven thousand years and more.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Laughter
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We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Books by and about Jean De La Bruyere