Quotes from Jean de la Bruyere

When we lavish our money we rob our heir; when we merely save it we rob ourselves.

A man who knows how to make good bargains or finds his money increase in his coffers, thinks presently that he has a good deal of brains and is almost fit to be a statesman.

If you suppress the exorbitant love of pleasure and money, idle curiosity, iniquitous pursuits and wanton mirth, what a stillness would there be in the greatest cities.

The News-writer lies down at Night in great Tranquillity, upon a piece of News which corrupts before Morning, and which he is obliged to throw away as soon as he awakes.

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

Poverty may be the mother of crime, but lack of good sense is the father.

Dissimulation, even the most innocent in its nature, is ever productive of embarrassment; whether the design is evil or not artifice is always dangerous and almost inevitably disgraceful.

No road is to long for him who advances slowly and does not hurry and no attainment is beyond his reach who equips himself with patience to achieve it

There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience.

Out of difficulties grow miracles.

I do not doubt but that genuine piety is the spring of peace of mind; it enables us to bear the sorrows of life, and lessens the pangs of death: the same cannot be said of hypocrisy.

Logic is the art of making truth prevail.

Some people pretend they never were in love and never wrote poetry; two weaknesses which they dare not own -- one of the heart, the other of the mind.

We must laugh before we are happy for fear of dying without having laughed at all.

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.

I would not like to see a person who is sober, moderate, chaste and just say that there is no God. They would speak disinterestedly at least, but such a person is not to be found.

The very impossibility which I find to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

Wit is the god of moments, but Genius is the god of ages.

The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discloses to me His existence. [Fr., L'impossibilite ou je suis de prouver que Dieu n'est pas, me decouvre son existence.]

When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any other standard to judge by: the work is good, the product of a master craftsman.

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

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

How happy the station which every moment furnishes opportunities of doing good to thousands! How dangerous that which every moment exposes to the injuring of millions!

We should laugh before being happy, for fear of dying without having laughed.