Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Jean de la Bruyere Author

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: France
  • Born: Aug 16, 1645
  • Died: May 11, 1696

Jean de La Bruyère (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃dÉ™labʁyˈjɛʁ]) (August 16, 1645 - May 10, 1696) was a French essayist and moralist.

La Bruyère was born in Paris, (not, as was once thought, at Dourdan (in today's Essonne département)) in 1645. His family was middle class, and his reference to a certain Geoffroy de La Bruyère, a crusader, is only a satirical illustration of a method of self-ennoblement common in France as in some other countries. Indeed he himself always signed the name Delabruyère in one word, as evidence of this. He could trace his family back at least as far as his great-grandfather, who had been a strong Leaguer. La Bruyère's own father was controller general of finance to the Hôtel de Ville.

The regeneration of society is the regeneration of society by individual education.

Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness.

Logic is the technique by which we add conviction to truth.

The wise person often shuns society for fear of being bored.

Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.

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

If some persons died, and others did not die, death would be a terrible affliction.

Children enjoy the present because they have neither a past nor a future.

We must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all.

Time makes friendship stronger, but love weaker.

The sweetest of all sounds is that of the voice of the woman we love.

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

All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.

The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth.

We should laugh before being happy, for fear of dying without having laughed.

Love and friendship exclude each other.

All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.

At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.

We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.

We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.

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

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

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

Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present, which seldom happens to us.

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

They that have lived a single day have lived an age.