Jean de La Bruyère Quotes

90 Sourced Quotes

One loves wholly but once — the first time: loves that follow are less involuntary.

Jean de La Bruyère
The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.

Jean de La Bruyère
A pious man is one who would be an atheist if the king were.

Jean de La Bruyère
If it be true that in showing pity and compassion we think of ourselves, because we fear to be one day or another in the same circumstances as those unfortunate people for whom we feel, why are the latter so sparingly relieved by us of their condition?

Jean de La Bruyère
Time, which strengthens friendship, weakens love.

Jean de La Bruyère
It is often shorter and better to yield to others than to endeavor to compel others to adjust themselves to us.

Jean de La Bruyère
It is a great misfortune not to have enough wit to speak well, or not enough judgment to keep silent.

Jean de La Bruyère
So long as people are subject to disease and death, they will run after physicians, however much they may deride them.

Jean de La Bruyère
Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.

Jean de La Bruyère
A Beautiful woman with the qualities of a noble man is the most perfect thing in nature: we find in her all the merits of both sexes.

Jean de La Bruyère
The people have little intelligence, the great no heart…if I had to choose I should have no hesitation: I would be of the people.

Jean de La Bruyère
We love well only once, the first time. The loves which follow are less involuntary.

Jean de La Bruyère
It does not take twenty years for men to change their opinions of things which had seemed to them the truest, and most certain.

Jean de La Bruyère
The town is divided into various groups, which form so many little states, each with its own laws and customs, its jargon and its jokes.

Jean de La Bruyère
The giving is the hardest part; what does it cost to add a smile?

Jean de La Bruyère
Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them; but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds.

Jean de La Bruyère
A man in health questions whether there is a God, and he also doubts whether it be a sin to have intercourse with a woman, who is at liberty to refuse ; but when he falls ill, or when his mistress is with child, she is discarded, and he believes in God.

Jean de La Bruyère
There is no better excess in the world than the excess of gratitude.

Jean de La Bruyère
For a woman to be at once a coquette and a bigot is more than the meekest of husbands can bear: women should mercifully choose between the two.

Jean de La Bruyère
We come too late to say anything which has not been said already.

Jean de La Bruyère
Venus was the daughter of the waves. She gave birth to Love: we can expect nothing but tempest from a daughter of the sea.

Jean de La Bruyère
A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.

Jean de La Bruyère
Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.

Jean de La Bruyère
When the populace is excited, one cannot conceive how calm can be restored; and when it is peaceful, one cannot see how calm can be disturbed.

Jean de La Bruyère
No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends, as to give them no cause to miss him less.

Jean de La Bruyère
The art of conversation consists less in showing one's own wit than in giving opportunity for the display of the wit of others.

Jean de La Bruyère
There are several ways to speak: to speak well, to speak easily, to speak justly, and to speak at the right moment.

Jean de La Bruyère
Most men make use of the first part of their life to render the last part miserable.

Jean de La Bruyère
We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.

Jean de La Bruyère
Women run to extremes; they are either better or worse than men.

Jean de La Bruyère