Quotes from la bruyere jean de iv

The same principle leads us to neglect a man of merit that induces us to admire a fool.

A man who has schemed for some time can no longer do without it; all other ways of living are to him dull and insipid.

Anything is a temptation to those who dread it.

Great things only require to be simply told, for they are spoiled by emphasis; but little things should be clothed in lofty language, as they are only kept up by expression, tone of voice, and style of delivery.

A man is rich whose income is larger than his expenses, and he is poor if his expenses are greater than his income.

A man of variable mind is not one man, but several men in one; he multiplies himself as often as he changes his taste and manners; he is not this minute what he was the last, and will not be the next what he is now; he is his own successor.

Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out.

During the course of our life we now and then enjoy some pleasures so inviting, and have some encounters of so tender a nature, that though they are forbidden, it is but natural to wish that they were at least allowable. Nothing can be more delightful, except it be to abandon them for virtue's sake.

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.

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 wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune, and favor cannot satisfy him.

A great mind is above insults, injustice, grief, and raillery, and would be invulnerable were it not open to compassion.

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.

How many men are like trees, already strong and full grown, which are transplanted into some gardens, to the astonishment of those people who behold them in these fine spots, where they never saw them grow, and who neither know their beginning nor their progress!

Love has this in common with scruples, that it becomes embittered by the reflections and the thoughts that beset us to free ourselves.

It is better to expose ourselves to ingratitude than to neglect our duty to the distressed.

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

The fear of old age disturbs us, yet we are not certain of becoming old.