Jean de La Bruyère

To make a book is as much a trade as to make a clock; something more than intelligence is required to become an author.

It is the glory and the merit of some men to write well, and of others not to write at all.

The same common sense which makes an author write good things, makes him dread they are not good enough to deserve reading.

A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely; a good mind thinks it writes reasonably.

If a handsome woman allows that another woman is beautiful, we may safely conclude she excels her.

Impertinent wits are a kind of insect which are in everybody’s way and plentiful in all countries.

If it be true that a man is rich who wants nothing, a wise man is a very rich man.

It is in vain to ridicule a rich fool, for the laughers will be on his side.

The most important things must be said simply, for they are spoiled by bombast; whereas trivial things must be described grandly, for they are supported only by aptness of expression, tone and manner.

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

The State not seldom tolerates a comparatively great evil to keep out millions of lesser ills and inconveniences which otherwise would be inevitable and without remedy.

A man can deceive a woman by his sham attachment to her provided he does not have a real attachment elsewhere.

A man must have very eminent qualities to hold his own without being polite.

Mockery is often the result of a poverty of wit.

When we are dead we are praised by those who survive us, though we frequently have no other merit than that of being no longer alive.

Logic is the art of making truth prevail.

Piety with some people, but especially with women, is either a passion, or an infirmity of age, or a fashion which must be followed.

Party loyalty lowers the greatest men to the petty level of the masses.

There are some extraordinary fathers, who seenl, during the whole course of their lives, to be giving their children reasons for being consoled at their death.

It is often easier as well as more advantageous to conform to other men’s opinions than to bring them over to ours.

There are some men who turn a deaf ear to reason and good advice, and wilfully go wrong for fear of being controlled.

Women become attached to men by the favors they grant them; men are cured by these same favors.

Men are the reason that women do not love one another.

There are few wives so perfect as not to give their husbands at least once a day good reason to repent of ever having married, or at least of envying those who are unmarried.

Time, which strengthens friendship, weakens love.

There are but three events which concern men: birth, life, and death. They are unconscious of their birth, they suffer when they die, and they neglect to live.

A show of a certain amount of honesty is in any profession or business the surest way of growing rich.

Hatred is so lasting and stubborn, that reconciliation on a sickbed certainly forebodes death.

It is a great misfortune not to possess sufficient wit to speak well, nor sufficient judgment to keep silent.

There exists scarcely any man so accomplished, or so necessary to his own family, but he has some failing which will diminish their regret at his loss.

There is no business in this world so troublesome as the pursuit of fame: life is over before you have hardly begun your work.

Men fall from great fortune because of the same shortcomings that led to their rise.

Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatic. The man who knows nothing thinks he is teaching others what he has just learned himself; the man who knows a great deal can’t imagine that what he is saying is not common knowledge, and speaks more indifferently.

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.

There are certain people who so ardently and passionately desire a thing, that from dread of losing it they leave nothing undone to make them lose it.

As favour and riches forsake a man, we discover in him the foolishness they concealed, and which no one perceived before.