Jean de la Bruyere

“As favor and riches forsake a man, we discover in him the foolishness they concealed, and which no one perceived before.”

“Marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.”

“We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.”

“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.”

“The first day one is a guest, the second a burden, and the third a pest.”

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

“Avoid lawsuits beyond all things; they pervert your conscience, impair your health, and dissipate your property.”

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

“The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.”

“A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.”

“There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.”

“Love and friendship exclude each other.”

“Man has but three events in his life: to be born, to live, and to die. He is not conscious of his birth, he suffers at his death and he forgets to live.”

“There are only three events in a man's life; birth, life, and death; he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.”

“Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.”

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

“Even the best intentioned of great men need a few scoundrels around them; there are some things you cannot ask an honest man to do.”

“It is boorish to live ungraciously: the giving is the hardest part; what does it cost to add a smile?”

“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.”

“Everything has been said, and we are more than seven thousand years of human thought too late.”