Quotes from La Bruyère

A wise man is not governed by others, nor does he try to govern them; he prefers that reason alone prevail.

Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present-- which seldom happens to us.

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

Nothing more clearly show how little God esteems his gift to men of wealth, money, position and other wordly goods, than the way he distributes these, and the sort of men who are most amply provided with them.