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Mediocrity
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There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet's bombast!
-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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Opera
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The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.
-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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Patience
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There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience.
-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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Men
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A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Power
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We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Praise
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A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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Present, the
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Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present -- which seldom happens to us.
-Jean De La Bruyere
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