Jean de la Bruyere Quotes, Quotations, and Sayings

24 Famous Quotes by Jean de la Bruyere
[1-24] 
“We trust our secrets to our friends, but they escape from us in love. [Fr., L'on confie son secret dans l'amitie, mais il echappe dans l'amour.]”
Secrecy Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres (IV)
“When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it.”
Secrecy Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres (V)
“The rarest things in the world, next to a spirit of discernment, are diamonds and pearls. [Fr., Apres l'esprit de discernement, ce qu'il y a au monde de plus rare, ce sont les diamants et les perles.]”
Pearls Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres (XII)
“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.”
Hypocrisy Quotes
Source: The Characters or Manners of the Present Age (ch. XI)
“A judge's duty is to grant justice, but his practice is to delay it: even those judges who know their duty adhere to the general practice. [Fr., Le devoir des juges est de rendre justice, leur metier est de la differer; quelques uns savent leur devoir, et font leur metier.]”
Judges Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres
“If Poverty is the Mother of Crimes, want of Sense is the Father.”
Sense Quotes
Source: The Characters or Manners of the Present Age (vol. II, ch. II)
“Between good sense and good taste there is the difference between cause and effect. [Fr., Entre le bon sens et le bon gout il y a la difference de la cause a son effet.]”
Sense Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres (XII)
“Rarely do they appear great before their valets. [Fr., Rarement ils sont grands vis-a-vis de leur valets-de-chambre.]”
Heroes Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres
“The rarest things in the world, next to a spirit of discernment, are diamonds and pearls. [Fr., Apres l'esprit de discernement, ce qu'il y a au monde de plus rare, ce sont les diamants et les perles.]”
Jewels Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres (XII)
“Languages are no more than the keys of Sciences. He who despises one, slights the other.”
Linguists Quotes
Source: The Characters or Manners of the Present Age (ch. XII)
“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.]”
Blushes Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres (II)
“The wise man sometimes flees from society from fear of being bored.”
Society Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres (V)
“The court is like a palace built of marble; I mean that it is made up of very hard but very polished people. [Fr., La cour est comme un edifice bati de marbre; je veux dire qu'elle est composee d'hommes fort durs mais fort polis.]”
Royalty Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres (VIII)
“We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.”
Laughter Quotes
Source: The Characters or Manners of the Present Age (ch. IV)
“Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out.”
Modesty Quotes
Source: The Characters or Manners of the Present Age (ch. II, sec. 17)
“You think him to be your dupe; if he feigns to be so who is the greater dupe, he or you? [Fr., Vous le croyez votre dupe: s'il feint de l'etre, qui est plus dupe, de lui ou de vous?]”
Deceit Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres (V)
“We never deceive for a good purpose: knavery adds malice to falsehood. [Fr., On ne trompe point en bien; la fourberie ajoute la malice au mensonge.]”
Deceit Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres (XI)
“The favor of princes does not preclude the existence of merit, and yet does not prove that it exists. [Fr., La faveur des princes n'exclut pas le merite, et ne le suppose pas aussi.]”
Merit Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres (XII)
“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.]”
Merit Quotes
Source: Les Caracteres (XII)
“Liberality consists less in giving a great deal than in gifts well-timed.”
Generosity Quotes
“All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.”
Misfortune Quotes
“A slave has but one master. An ambitious man has as many as there are people who helped him get his fortune.”
Ambition Quotes
“Children have neither past nor future; and that which seldom happens to us, they rejoice in the present.”
Children Quotes
“Out of difficulties grow miracles.”
Miracles Quotes