Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings.
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE If some persons died and others did not die death would indeed be a terrible affliction.
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE As favour and riches forsake a man, we discover in him the foolishness they concealed, and which no ...
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE No vice exists which does not pretend to be more or less like some virtue, and which docs not take a...
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE We should only endeavor to think and speak correctly ourselves, without wishing to bring others over...
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE A man is rich whose income is larger than his expenses, and he is poor if his expenses are greater t...
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE [Il ne manque cependant à l'oisiveté du sage qu'un meilleur nom, et que méditer, parler, lire, et...
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE Une froideur ou une incivilité qui vient de ceux qui sont au-dessus de nous nous les fait haïr, ma...
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE Not to be able to bear with all bad-tempered people with whom the world is crowded, shows that a man...
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE The pleasure of criticism takes away from us the pleasure of being deeply moved by very fine things.
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE The pleasure of criticizing takes away from us the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things.
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir etre seul.
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE Such a great misfortune, not to be able to be alone.
JEAN DE LA BRUYèRE Friendship is the shadow of the evening, which strengthens with the setting sun of life.
JEAN DE LA LA FONTAINE The first day one is a guest, the second a burden, and the third a pest.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Out of difficulties grow miracles.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE We must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any othe...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Even the best intentioned of great men need a few scoundrels around them; there are some things you ...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Time makes friendship stronger, but love weaker.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, ...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE They that have lived a single day have lived an age.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Poverty may be the mother of crime, but lack of good sense is the father.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Next to sound judgment, diamonds and pearls are the rarest things in the world.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present, which seldom happens to us.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Love and friendship exclude each other.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE People who make no noise are dangerous.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE There is no road of flowers leading to glory.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it; nothing is commoner than the name, no...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE It is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Death never takes the wise man by surprise, he is always ready to go.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Dressed in the lion's skin, the ass spread terror far and wide.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE In short, Luck's always to blame.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE By the work one knows the workman.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Nothing is as dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is to be preferred.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE A hungry stomach cannot hear.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Friendship is the shadow of the evening, which increases with the setting sun of life.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE There are only three events in a man's life; birth, life, and death; he is not conscious of bein...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE By time and toil we sever What strength and rage could never. [Fr., Patience et longueur de te...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Nothing is so dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is worth more. [Fr., Rien n'est si da...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE The spendthrift robs his heirs the miser robs himself.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE There are three stages in a person's life, birth, their life and death. They are not conscious of bi...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE If our life is unhappy it is painful to bear; if it is happy it is horrible to lose, So the one is p...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE To live lightheartedly but not recklessly; to be gay without being boisterous; to be courageous with...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE It requires more than mere genius to be an author.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE The regeneration of society is the regeneration of society by individual education.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE If some persons died, and others did not die, death would be a terrible affliction.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Liberality consists less in giving a great deal than in gifts well-timed.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Everyone has his faults which he continually repeats: neither fear nor shame can cure them.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Lofty posts make great men greater still, and small men much smaller.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Patience and the passage of time do more than strength and fury.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Help yourself, and Heaven will help you.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE He knows the universe and does not know himself.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE One should never risk a joke, even of the mildest and most unexceptional charters, except among peop...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Still people are dangerous.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Politeness makes one appear outwardly as they should be within.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Luck's always to blame.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE In short, luck's always to blame.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Avoid lawsuits beyond all things; they pervert your conscience, impair your health, and dissipate yo...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE The court is like a palace of marble; it's composed of people very hard and very polished.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Beware, so long as you live, of judging men by their outward appearance.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE To be among people one loves, that's sufficient; to dream, to speak to them, to be silent among them...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE One seeks to make the loved one entirely happy, or, if that cannot be, entirely wretched.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE A pessimist and an optimist, so much the worse; so much the better.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE The argument of the strongest is always the best.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE The wise person often shuns society for fear of being bored.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE If poverty is the mother of crime, lack of good sense is the father.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Children enjoy the present because they have neither a past nor a future.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE We read on the foreheads of those who are surrounded by a foolish luxury, that fortune sells what sh...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE The giving is the hardest part; what does it cost to add a smile?
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE A slave has but one master. An ambition man, has as many as there are people who helped him get his ...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE It is twice the pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Nothing is so dangerous as an ignorant friend.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE The fastidious are unfortunate; nothing satisfies them.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE The passion of hatred is so long lived and so obstinate a malady that the surest sign of death in a ...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE One returns to the place one came from.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE I would not like to see a person who is sober, moderate, chaste and just say that there is no God. T...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Liberality consists less in giving a great deal than in gifts well-timed.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Nothing is more dangerous than a friend without discretion; even a prudent enemy is preferable.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them; but it serves as an...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE This great misfortune -- to be incapable of solitude.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Mockery is often the result of a poverty of wit.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present -- which seldom happens to us...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE A man of the world must seem to be what he wishes to be thought.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE A bachelor's life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquen...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who d...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Everything has been said, and we have come too late, now that men have been living and thinking for ...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE One often has need of one, inferior to himself.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Jesting is often only indigence of intellect.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE You may drive a dog off the King's armchair, and it will climb into the preacher's pulpit; he views ...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE As long as men are liable to die and are desirous to live, a physician will be made fun of, but he w...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE As favor and riches forsake a man, we discover in him the foolishness they concealed, and which no o...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE False greatness is unsociable and remote: conscious of its own frailty, it hides, or at least averts...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE That man is good who does good to others; if he suffers on account of the good he does, he is very g...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Every flatterer lives at the expense of him who listens to him.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Grief that is dazed and speechless is out of fashion: the modern woman mourns her husband loudly and...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Every journalist owes tribute to the evil one.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE There is not in the world so toilsome a trade as the pursuit of fame; life concludes before you have...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE There are only two ways of getting on in the world: by one's own industry, or by the stupidity of ot...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contr...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends, as to give them no cause to miss him less.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE The sweetest of all sounds is that of the voice of the woman we love.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE The great gift of conversation lies less in displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts, seek for no other te...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE By the work one knows the workmen.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE A man can keep a secret better than his own. A woman her own better than others.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Nothing weighs on us so heavily as a secret.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE We never deceive for a good purpose: knavery adds malice to falsehood. [Fr., On ne trompe point e...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE We are valued in this world at the rate we desire to be valued.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE A person's worth in this world is estimated according to the value they put on themselves.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity. [Fr., Les hommes rougissent...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Better a living beggar than a buried emperor. [Fr., Mieux vaut goujat debout qu'empereur enterre.]
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE A judge's duty is to grant justice, but his practice is to delay it: even those judges who know th...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Patience and passage of time do more than strength and fury.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE When a man puts on a Character he is a stranger to, there's as much difference between what he appe...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE In my end is my beginning.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE We ought to consider the end in everything. [Fr., En toute chose il faut considerer la fin.]
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE He is very foolish who aims at satisfying all the world and his father. [Fr., Est bien fou du cer...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE The fastidious are unfortunate: nothing can satisfy them. [Lat., Les delicats sont malheureux, ...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE The reasoning of the strongest is always the best. [Fr., La raison du plus fort est toujours la me...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Rather suffer than die is man's motto.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Imitators are a slavish herd and fools in my opinion. [Fr., C'est un betail servile et sot a mon a...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Children have neither past nor future; they enjoy the present.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Example is a dangerous lure: where the wasp got through the gnat sticks fast. [Fr., L'exemple es...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Patience and time do more than strength or passion.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Sadness flies away on the wings of time.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Be advised that all flatterers live at the expense of those who listen to them.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Better a living beggar than a buried emperor.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Never sell the bear's skin before one has killed the beast.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Sensible people find nothing useless. [Fr., Il n'est rien d'inutile aux personnes de sens.]
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Between good sense and good taste there is the difference between cause and effect. [Fr., Entre l...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE If Poverty is the Mother of Crimes, want of Sense is the Father.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE We trust our secrets to our friends, but they escape from us in love. [Fr., L'on confie son secre...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Nothing is so oppressive as a secret: women find it difficult to keep one long; and I know a goodl...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE All roads lead to Rome, but our antagonists think we should choose different paths. [Fr., Tous ch...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE Rome was not built in a day.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE No flowery road leads to glory. [Fr., Aucun chemin de fleurs ne conduit a la gloire.]
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE There is no road of flowers leading to glory
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE It is said, that the thing you possess is worth more than two you may have in the future. The one ...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely; a good mind thinks it writes reasonably.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE A slave has but one master. An ambitious man has as many as there are people who helped him get h...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE The court is like a palace built of marble; I mean that it is made up of very hard but very polishe...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE The wise man sometimes flees from society from fear of being bored.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Rarely do they appear great before their valets. [Fr., Rarement ils sont grands vis-a-vis de leur ...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE You think him to be your dupe; if he feigns to be so who is the greater dupe, he or you? [Fr., Vo...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE We ought never to scoff at the wretched, for who can be sure of continued happiness? [Fr., Il ne ...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE The same principle leads us to neglect a man of merit that induces us to admire a fool. [Fr., Du ...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE The favor of princes does not preclude the existence of merit, and yet does not prove that it exist...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE The rarest things in the world, next to a spirit of discernment, are diamonds and pearls. [Fr., A...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as can help in making his fortune.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Languages are no more than the keys of Sciences. He who despises one, slights the other.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE 'Tis thus we heed no instincts but our own, Believe no evil, till the evil's done. [Fr., Nous ...
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE We become innocent when we are unfortunate. [Fr., On devient innocent quand on est malheureux.]
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE A fly sat on the chariot wheel And said "what a dust I raise."
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE The slave has but one master; the ambitious man has as many as can help him in making his fortune.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE The shortest and best ways to make your fortune is to let people see clearly that it is in their int...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality, but from several--from foolish vanity, from...
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE Nothing is so dangerous as an ignorant friend;
A wise enemy is worth more.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE In everything one must consider the end.
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE