Top 300 Jean de La Bruyère Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

2. “Out of difficulties grow miracles.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

3. “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.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

4. “The most exquisite pleasure is giving pleasure to others.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

5. “A person’s worth in this world is estimated according to the value he puts on himself.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

6. “Most men spend the first half of their lives making the second half miserable.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

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7. “Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life. It is only found in men of sound sense and understanding.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

8. “Mockery is often the result of a poverty of wit.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

9. “Next to sound judgment, diamonds and pearls are the rarest things in the world.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

10. “The spendthrift robs his heirs the miser robs himself.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

11. “A pious man is one who would be an atheist if the king were.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

12. “Logic is the art of convincing us some truth.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

13. “The great charm of conversation consists less in the display of one’s own wit and intelligence than in the power to draw forth the resources of others.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

14. “The shortest and best way to make your fortune is to let people see clearly that it is in their interest to promote yours.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

15. “It is a great misfortune neither to have enough wit to talk well nor enough judgment to be silent.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

16. “False modesty is the refinement of vanity. It is a lie.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

17. “Incivility is not a Vice of the Soul, but the effect of several Vices; of Vanity, Ignorance of Duty, Laziness, Stupidity, Distraction, Contempt of others, and Jealousy.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

18. “The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

19. “All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

20. “We seldom repent talking little, but very often talking too much.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

21. “An egotist will always speak of himself, either in praise or in censure, but a modest man ever shuns making himself the subject of his conversation.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

22. “A man reveals his character even in the simplest things he does.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

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

— Jean de La Bruyère

24. “A man who knows the court is master of his gestures, of his eyes and of his face; he is profound, impenetratable; he dissimulates bad offices, smiles at his enemies, controls his irritation, disguises his passions, belies his heartm speaks and acts against his feelings.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

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

— Jean de La Bruyère

26. “Banter is often a proof of want of intelligence.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

27. “Death happens but once, yet we feel it every moment of our lives; it is worse to dread it than to suffer it.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

28. “Jesting is often only indigence of intellect.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

29. “It is a fool’s privilege to laugh at an intelligent man.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

30. “A woman with eyes only for one person, or with eyes always averted from him, creates exactly the same impression.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

31. “Men regret their life has been ill-spent, but this does not always induce them to make a better use of the time they have yet to live.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

32. “The regeneration of society is the regeneration of society by individual education.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

33. “Days, months, years fly away, and irrecoverably sink in the abyss of time.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

34. “Caprice in woman is the antidote to beauty.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

35. “It is more or less rude to scorn indiscriminately all kinds of praise; we ought to be proud of that which comes from honest men, who praise sincerely those things in us which are really commendable.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

36. “Love and friendship exclude each other.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

37. “When a plain-looking woman is loved, it is certain to be very passionately ; for either her influence on her lover is irresistible, or she has some secret and more irresistible charms than those of beauty.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

38. “There are three great events in our lives: birth, life and death. Of birth we have no conscience; with death, we suffer; and, concerning life, we forget to live it.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

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

— Jean de La Bruyère

40. “The punishment of a criminal is an example to the rabble; but every decent man is concerned if an innocent person is condemned.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

41. “Life at court does not satisfy a man, but it keeps him from being satisfied with anything else.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

42. “It is because of men that women dislike one another.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

43. “The whole genius of an author consists in describing well, and delineating character well. Homer, Plato, Virgil, Horace only excel other writers by their expressions and images; we must indicate what is true if we mean to write naturally, forcibly and delicately.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

44. “The sublime only paints the true, and that too in noble objects; it paints it in all its phases, its cause and its effect; it is the most worthy expression or image of this truth. Ordinary minds cannot find out the exact expression, and use synonymes.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

45. “How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!”

— Jean de La Bruyère

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

— Jean de La Bruyère

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47. “Languages are the keys of science.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

48. “A modest man never talks of himself.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

49. “There is no excess in the world so commendable as excessive gratitude.”

— Jean de La Bruyère

50. “An inconstant woman is one who is no longer in love; a false woman is one who is already in love with another person; a fickle woman is she who neither knows whom she loves nor whether she loves or not; and the indifferent woman, one who does not love at all.”

— Jean de La Bruyère