French philosopher and moralist (1645-1696)
A preacher must have some intelligence to charm the people by his florid style, by his exhilarating system of morality, by the repetition of his figures of speech, his brilliant remarks and vivid descriptions ; but, after all, he has not too much of it, for if he possessed some of the right quality he would neglect these extraneous ornaments, unworthy of the Gospel, and preach naturally, forcibly, and like a Christian.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Pulpit", Les Caractères
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
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
To express truth is to write naturally, forcibly, and delicately.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
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
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
That man is good who does good to others; if he suffers on account of the good he does, he is very good; if he suffers at the hands of those to whom he has done good, then his goodness is so great that it could be enhanced only by greater sufferings; and if he should die at their hands, his virtue can go no further: it is heroic, it is perfect.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères
Love begins with love ; and the warmest friendship cannot change even to the coldest love.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
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.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères
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.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Freethinkers", Les Caractères
He who only writes to suit the taste of the age, considers himself more than his writings. We should always aim at perfection, and then posterity will do us that justice which sometimes our contemporaries refuse us.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
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
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères
What can be more discouraging to a man than to doubt if his soul be material, like a stone or a reptile, and subject to corruption like the vilest creatures? And does it not prove much more strength of mind and grandeur to be able to conceive the idea of a Being superior to all other beings, by whom and for whom all things were made ; of a Being absolutely perfect and pure, without beginning or end, of whom our soul is the image, and of whom, if I may say so, it is a part, because it is spiritual and immortal?
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Freethinkers", Les Caractères
We confide our secret to a friend, but in love it escapes us.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
To bewail the loss of a person we love is a happiness compared with the necessity of living with one we hate.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
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.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE
The Characters or Manners of the Present Age
Life is short and tedious, and is wholly spent in wishing; we trust to find rest and enjoyment at some future time, often at an age when our best blessings, youth and health, have already left us. When at last I that time has arrived, it surprises us in the midst of fresh desires; we have got no farther when we are attacked by a fever which kills us; if we had been cured, it would only have been to give us more time for other desires.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères
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.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Women", Les Caractères
If it be usual to be strongly impressed by things that are scarce, why are we so little impressed by virtue?
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères
All the worth of some people lies in their name; upon a closer inspection it dwindles to nothing, but from a distance it deceives us.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères
When a man puts on a Character he is a stranger to, there's as much difference between what he appears, and what he is really in himself, as there is between a Vizor and a Face.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE
The Characters or Manners of the Present Age