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Jean de La Bruyère -
Les Caracteres (1688)
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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
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The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.
Jean de La Bruyère
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To laugh at men of sense is the privilege of fools.
Jean de La Bruyère
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Marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.
Jean de La Bruyère
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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 Bruyère
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If it is true that one is poor on account of all the things one wants, the ambitious and the avaricious languish in extreme poverty.
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Menippus is a bird decked in various feathers which are not his. He neither says nor feels anything, but repeats the feelings and sayings of others; it is so natural for him to make use of other people's minds that he is the first deceived by it, and often believes he speaks his own mind or expresses his own thoughts when he is but the echo of some man he just parted with.
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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."
Jean de La Bruyère
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Sudden love takes the longest time to be cured.
Jean de La Bruyère
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We come too late to say anything which has not been said already.
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One seeks to make the loved one entirely happy, or, if that cannot be, entirely wretched.
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Women run to extremes; they are either better or worse than men.
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We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.
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Most men make use of the first part of their life to render the last part miserable.
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No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends, as to give them no cause to miss him less.
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Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.
Jean de La Bruyère
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A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.
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Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.
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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.
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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
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Quote of the day
Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.
Faith Baldwin
Jean de La Bruyère
Creative Commons
Born:
August 16, 1645
Died:
May 11, 1696
(aged 50)
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