Best 365 quotes of Jean De La Bruyere on MyQuotes

When we have run through all forms of government, without partiality to that we were born under, we are at a loss with which to side; they are all a compound of good and evil. It is therefore most reasonable and safe to value that of our own country above all others, and to submit to it.

When we lavish our money we rob our heir; when we merely save it we rob ourselves.

When what you read elevates your mind and fills you with noble aspirations, look for no other rule by which to judge a book; it is good, and is the work of a master-hand.

Widows, like ripe fruit, drop easily from their perch.

Wit is the god of moments, but Genius is the god of ages.

Women are extreme; they are better than men, or worse.

Women become attached to men by the intimacies they grant them; men are cured of their love by the same intimacies.

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.

Young people are dazzled by the brilliancy of antithesis, and employ it. Matter-of-fact men, and those who like precision, naturally fall into comparisons and metaphor. Sprightly natures, full of fire, and whom a boundless imagination carries beyond all rules, and even what is reasonable, cannot rest satisfied even with hyperbole. As for the sublime, it is only great geniuses and those of the very highest order that are able to rise to its height.

You think him to be your dupe; if he feigns to be so who is the greater dupe, he or you?

If poverty is the mother of all crimes, lack of intelligence is their father.

If some persons died and others did not die death would indeed be a terrible affliction.

[Il ne manque cependant à l'oisiveté du sage qu'un meilleur nom, et que méditer, parler, lire, et être tranquille s'appelât travailler.] There is, however, nothing wanting to the idleness of a philosopher but a better name, and that meditation, conversation, and reading should be called “work”.

The pleasure of criticism takes away from us the pleasure of being deeply moved by very fine things.

The very essence of politeness is to take care that by our words and actions we make other people pleased with us as well as with themselves.