Jean de la Bruyère (French: [ʒɑ̃ də la bʁyjɛʁ]; 16 August 1645 – 11 May 1696) was a French philosopher and moralist, who was noted for his satire.
If our life is unhappy it is painful to bear; if it is happy it is horrible to lose, So the one is pretty equal to the other.
It is not so easy to obtain a reputation by a perfect work as to enhance the value of an indifferent one by a reputation already acquired.
One must laugh before one is happy, or one may die without ever laughing at all.
The finest and most beautiful ideas on morals and manners have been swept away before our times, and nothing is left for us but to glean after the ancients and the ablest amongst the moderns.
Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity. [Fr. , Les hommes rougissent moins de leur crimes que de leurs faiblesses et de leur vanite. ]
We must confess that at present the rich predominate, but the future will be for the virtuous and ingenious.
False modesty is the masterpiece of vanity: showing the vain man in such an illusory light that he appears in the reputation of the virtue quite opposite to the vice which constitutes his real character; it is a deceit.
No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends as to give them no cause to miss him less.
There is a pleasure in meeting the glance of a person whom we have lately laid under some obligations.
We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.
I am not surprised that there are gambling houses, like so many snares laid for human avarice; like abysses where many a man's money is engulfed and swallowed up without any hope of return; like frightful rocks against which the gamblers are thrown and perish.
For a long time visits among lovers and professions of love are kept up through habit, after their behavior has plainly proved that love no longer exists.
Amongst such as out of cunning hear all and talk little, be sure to talk less; or if you must talk, say little.
If women were by nature what they make themselves by art; if they were to lose suddenly all the freshness of their complexion, and their faces to become as fiery and as leaden as they make them with the red and the paint they besmear themselves with, they would consider themselves the most wretched creatures on earth.
A lofty birth or a large fortune portend merit, and cause it to be the sooner noticed.
False modesty is the refinement of vanity. It is a lie.
Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality, but from several--from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought, from contempt of others, from jealousy.
The Great slight the men of wit, who have nothing but wit; the men of wit despise the Great, who have nothing but greatness; the good man pities them both, if with greatness or wit they have not virtue.
It is virtue which should determine us in the choice of our friends, without inquiring into their good or evil fortune.
The generality of men expend the early part of their lives in contributing to render the latter part miserable.