Quotes from la bruyere jean de iii

The same amount of pride which makes a man treat haughtily his inferiors, makes him cringe servilely; to those above him.

He who will not listen to any advice, nor be corrected in his writings, is a rank pedant.

A man must be very inert to have no character at all.

Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatical.

In all conditions of life a poor man is a near neighbor to an honest one, and a rich man is as little removed from a knave.

If life be wretched, it is hard to bear it; if it be happy, it is horrible to lose it ; both come to the same thing.

The favor of princes does not preclude the existence of merit, and yet does not prove that it exists.

To speak and to offend is with some people but one and the same thing.

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.

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

When, after having read a work, loftier thoughts arise in your mind and noble and heartfelt feelings animate you, do not look for any other rule to judge it by; it is fine and written in a masterly manner.

Women are at little trouble to express what they do not feel; but men are still at less to express what they do feel.

Nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a large one.

It is weakness which makes us hate an enemy and seek revenge, and it is idleness that pacifies us and causes us to neglect it.

The shortest and best way of making your fortune is to let people clearly see that it is their interest to promote yours.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet's bombast!

It is too much for a husband to have a wife who is a coquette and sanctimonious as well; she should select only one of those qualities.

I am not astonished that men who lean, as it were, on an atom, should stumble at the smallest efforts they make for discovering the truth ; that, being so short-sighted, they do not reach beyond the heavens and the stars, to contemplate God Himself.