Jean de La Bruyère Quotes
1645 – 1696
French moralist, author of "Les Caractères" (1688).
“We come too late to say anything which has not been said already.”
“Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.”
“A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.”
“No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends, as to give them no cause to miss him less.”
“There are but three events in a man's life: birth, life and death.”
“Lofty posts make great men greater still, and small men much smaller.”
“Most men make use of the first part of their life to render the last part miserable.”
“We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.”
“Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.”
“Liberality consists less in giving a great deal than in gifts well timed.”
“We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.”
“The giving is the hardest part; what does it cost to add a smile?”
“One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.”
“Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.”
“Women run to extremes; they are either better or worse than men.”
