Jean de la Bruyere Men Quotations

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.

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.

It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well nor the judgment to hold their tongues.

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

A man can keep another's secret better than his own. A woman her own better than others.

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

It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.

The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.

A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself.

A man of the world must seem to be what he wishes to be thought.

Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity.

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

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

Politeness does not always inspire goodness, equity, complaisance, and gratitude; it gives at least the appearance of these qualities, and makes man appear outwardly, as he should be within.

It is motive alone that gives real value to the actions of men, and disinterestedness puts the cap to it.

The same principle leads us to neglect a man of merit that induces us to admire a fool. [Fr., Du meme fonds dont on neglige un homme de merite l'on sait encore admirer un sot.]

I am told so many ill things of a man, and I see so few in him, that I begin to suspect he has a real but troublesome merit, as being likely to eclipse that of others.

A man unattached and without wife, if he have any genius at all, may raise himself above his original position, may mingle with the world of fashion, and hold himself on a level with the highest; this is less easy for him who is engaged; it seems as if marriage put the whole world in their proper rank.

A man starts upon a sudden, takes Pen, Ink, and Paper, and without ever having had a thought of it before, resolves within himself he will write a Book; he has no Talent at Writing, but he wants fifty Guineas.

I call those men worldly, earthly, or coarse, whose hearts and minds are wholly fixed on this earth, that small part of the universe they are placed in ; who value and love nothing beyond it ; whose minds are as cramped as that narrow spot of ground they call their estate, of which the extent is measured, the acres are numbered, and the limits well known.

Friendship can exist between persons of different sexes, without any coarse or sensual feelings; yet a woman always looks upon a man as a man, and so a man will look upon a woman as a woman.

A man of moderate Understanding, thinks he writes divinely: A man of good Understanding, thinks he writes reasonably.

If men wish to be held in esteem, they must associate with those only who are estimable.

A modest man never talks of himself.

A fool is one whom simpletons believe to be a man on merit. [Fr., Un fat celui que les sots croient un homme de merite.]

I am not surprised that there are gambling houses, like so many snares laid for human avarice; like abysses where many a man's money is engulfed and swallowed up without any hope of return; like frightful rocks against which the gamblers are thrown and perish.

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.

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.

Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches; their burden would be too heavy for us; we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, quiet, honor and conscience, to obtain them: It is to pay so dear from them that the bargain is a loss.

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

No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends as to give them no cause to miss him less.

Both as to high and low indifferently, men are prepossessed, charmed, fascinated by success; successful crimes are praised very much like virtue itself, and good fortune is not far from occupying the place of the whole cycle of virtues. It must be an atrocious act, a base and hateful deed, which success would not be able to justify.

Everything has been said, and we have come too late, now that men have been living and thinking for seven thousand years and more.

As long as men are liable to die and are desirous to live, a physician will be made fun of, but he will be well paid.

Every man is valued in this world as he shows by his conduct that he wishes to be valued.

False modesty is the masterpiece of vanity: showing the vain man in such an illusory light that he appears in the reputation of the virtue quite opposite to the vice which constitutes his real character; it is a deceit.

Party loyalty lowers the greatest men to the petty level of the masses.

A blockhead cannot come in, nor go away, nor sit, nor rise, nor stand, like a man of sense.

Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity. [Fr., Les hommes rougissent moins de leur crimes que de leurs faiblesses et de leur vanite.]

A coxcomb is the blockhead's man of merit.

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!

The nearer we approach great men, the clearer we see that they are men.

It is very rare to find ground which produces nothing; if it is not covered with flowers, with fruit trees and grains, it produces briers and pines. It is the same with man; if he is not virtuous, he becomes vicious.

The same amount of pride which makes a man treat haughtily his inferiors, makes him cringe servilely; to those above him.

It is difficult for a proud man ever to forgive a person who has found him at fault, and who has good grounds for complaining of him; his pride is not assuaged till he has regained the advantages he lost and put the other person in the wrong.

Women are at little trouble to express what they do not feel; but men are still at less to express what they do feel.

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.

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.

Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatical.

A man must be very inert to have no character at all.

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.

In all conditions of life a poor man is a near neighbor to an honest one, and a rich man is as little removed from a knave.

The Great slight the men of wit, who have nothing but wit; the men of wit despise the Great, who have nothing but greatness; the good man pities them both, if with greatness or wit they have not virtue.

False glory is the rock of vanity; it seduces men to affect esteem by things which they indeed possess, but which are frivolous, and which for a man to value himself on would be a scandalous error.

A vain man finds his account in speaking good or evil of himself.

The opposite of what is noised about concerning men and things is often the truth. [Fr., Le contraire des bruits qui courent des affaires ou des personnes est souvent la verite.]

Young people are dazzled by the brilliancy of antithesis, and employ it. Matter-of-fact men, and those who like precision, naturally fall into comparisons and metaphor. Sprightly natures, full of fire, and whom a boundless imagination carries beyond all rules, and even what is reasonable, cannot rest satisfied even with hyperbole. As for the sublime, it is only great geniuses and those of the very highest order that are able to rise to its height.

Eminent station makes great men more great, and little ones less.

The best thing next to wit is a consciousness that it is not in us; without wit, a man might then know how to behave himself, so as not to appear to be a fool or a coxcomb.

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.

It would be a kind of ferocity to reject indifferently all sorts of praise. One should be glad to have that which comes from good men who praise in sincerity things that are really praiseworthy.

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

A woman is easily governed, if a man takes her in hand.

A man's worth is estimated in this world according to his conduct.

Favor exalts a man above his equals, but his dismissal from that favor places him below them.

Extremes are vicious, and proceed from men; compensation is just, and proceeds from God.

Laziness begat wearisomeness, and this put men in quest of diversions, play and company, on which however it is a constant attendant; he who works hard, has enough to do with himself otherwise.

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.

Physiognomy is not a guide that has been given us by which to judge of the character of men: it may only serve us for conjecture. [Fr., La physionomie n'est pas une regle qui nous soit donnee pour juger des hommes; elle nous peut servir de conjecture.]

Most men employ the first part of life to make the other part miserable. [Fr., La plupart des hommes emploient la premiere part vie a rendre l'autre miserable.]

Life is a kind of sleep: old men sleep longest, nor begin to wake but when they are to die.

Men are the cause of women not loving one another. [Fr., Les hommes sont la cause que les femmes ne s'aiment point.]

Pure friendship is something which men of an inferior intellect can never taste.

One faithful Friend is enough for a man's self, 'tis much to meet with such an one, yet we can't have too many for the sake of others.

Men make the best friends.

A man is thirty years old before he has any settled thoughts of his fortune; it is not completed before fifty. He falls to building in his old age, and dies by the time his house is in a condition to be painted and glazed.

The pleasure a man of honor enjoys in the consciousness of having performed his duty is a reward he pays himself for all his pains.

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

Make me chaste and To what excesses will men not go for the sake of a religion in which they believe so little and which they practice so imperfectly!

Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than native genius. In the hands of a man who has read widely but lacks judgment, applied to certain subjects it can corrupt both its readers and the writer himself.

Nothing more clearly shows how little God esteems his gift to men of wealth, money, position and other worldly goods, than the way he distributes these, and the sort of men who are most amply provided with them.

Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them; but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.

Men fall from great fortune because of the same shortcomings that led to their rise.

A man may have intelligence enough to excel in a particular thing and lecture on it, and yet not have sense enough to know he ought to be silent on some other subject of which he has but a slight knowledge; if such an illustrious man ventures beyond the bounds of his capacity, he loses his way and talks like a fool.

A man must have very eminent qualities to hold his own without being polite.

As riches and honor forsake a man, we discover him to be a fool, but nobody could find it out in his prosperity.

A man has made great progress in cunning when he does not seem too clever to others.

From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.

There are but three events which concern man: birth, life and death. They are unconscious of their birth, they suffer when they die, and they neglect to live.

A wise man neither suffers himself to be governed, nor attempts to govern others.

The reason that women do not love one another is - men.

When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it.

Lofty posts make great men greater still, and small men much smaller.

A coxcomb is one whom simpletons believe to be a man of merit.

A wise man is not governed by others, nor does he try to govern them; he prefers that reason alone prevail.

A guilty man is punished as an example for the mob; an innocent man convicted is the business of every honest citizen.

It is because of men that women dislike one another.

It is the glory and merit of some men to write well and of others not to write at all.

Women run to extremes, they are either better or worse than men.

We seek our happiness outside ourselves, and in the opinion of men we know to be flatterers, insincere, unjust, full of envy, caprice and prejudice.