Background Image

...

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.

-Jean De La Bruyere

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

A Man May Have

Jean De La Bruyere

...

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.

Views: 87029

Topic

More From Jean De La Bruyere

I Would Not Like To See A Person Who Is Sober, Moderate, Chaste And Just Say That There Is No God. They Would Speak Disinterestedly At Least, But Such A Person Is Not To Be Found.

The Shortest And Best Way To Make Your Fortune Is To Let People See Clearly That It Is In Their Interest To Promote Yours.

The Great Gift Of Conversation Lies Less In Displaying It Ourselves Than In Drawing It Out Of Others. He Who Leaves Your Company Pleased With Himself And His Own Cleverness Is Perfectly Well Pleased With You.

The Majority Of Women Have No Principles Of Their Own; They Are Guided By The Heart, And Depend For Their Own Conduct, Upon That Of The Men They Love.

If Women Were By Nature What They Make Themselves By Art; If They Were To Lose Suddenly All The Freshness Of Their Complexion, And Their Faces To Become As Fiery And As Leaden As They Make Them With The Red And The Paint They Besmear Themselves With, They Would Consider Themselves The Most Wretched Creatures On Earth.

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.

To What Excesses Do Men Rush For The Sake Of Religion, Of Whose Truth They Are So Little Persuaded, And To Whose Precepts They Pay So Little Regard!

If You Suppress The Exorbitant Love Of Pleasure And Money, Idle Curiosity, Iniquitous Pursuits And Wanton Mirth, What A Stillness Would There Be In The Greatest Cities.

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.

Caprice In Women Often Infringes Upon The Rules Of Decency.

Sudden Love Is Latest Cured.

As Riches And Honor Forsake A Man, We Discover Him To Be A Fool, But Nobody Could Find It Out In His Prosperity.

Logic Is The Technique By Which We Add Conviction To Truth.

Love And Friendship Exclude Each Other.

Love And Friendship

A Wise Man Neither Suffers Himself To Be Governed, Nor Attempts To Govern Others.

Born Merely For The Purpose Of Digestion.

The Pleasure We Feel In Criticizing Robs Us From Being Moved By Very Beautiful Things.

We Are More Sociable, And Get On Better With People By The Heart Than The Intellect.

Widows, Like Ripe Fruit, Drop Easily From Their Perch.

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.]

Praise, Of All Things, Is The Most Powerful Excitement To Commendable Actions, And Animates Us In Our Enterprises.

A Lovely Countenance Is The Fairest Of All Sights, And The Sweetest Harmony Is The Sound Of The Voice Of Her Whom We Love.

There Are Some Men Who Turn A Deaf Ear To Reason And Good Advice, And Willfully Go Wrong For Fear Of Being Controlled.

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.

Pure Friendship Is Something Which Men Of An Inferior Intellect Can Never Taste.

Friendship * * * Is A Long Time In Forming, It Is Of Slow Growth, Through Many Trials And Months Of Familiarity.

Men Blush Less For Their Crimes Than For Their Weaknesses And Vanity.

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.

Life Is A Kind Of Sleep: Old Men Sleep Longest, Nor Begin To Wake But When They Are To Die.

Foolish Jokers Are Thick On The Ground, And It Rains Insects Of That Sort Everywhere. A Good Joker Is A Rarity; Even A Man Who Is Such By Nature Finds It Hard To Sustain The Part For Long; It Seldom Happens That The Man Who Makes Us Laugh Wins Our Esteem.

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.

Modesty Is To Merit, What Shade Is To Figures In A Picture; It Gives It Strength And Makes It Stand Out.

Love Receives Its Death-wound From Aversion, And Forgetfulness Buries It.

In Art Them Is A Point Of Perfection, As Of Goodness Or Maturity In Nature; He Who Is Able To Perceive It, And Who Loves It, Has Perfect Taste; He Who Does Not Feel It, Or Loves On This Side Or That, Has An Imperfect Taste.

Anything Is A Temptation To Those Who Dread It.

A Faithless Woman, If Known To Be Such By The Person Concerned, Is But Faithless; If She Is Believed Faithful, She Is Treacherous.

I Never Have Wit Until I Am Below Stairs. [fr., Je N'ai Jamais D'esprit Qu'au Bas De L'escalier.]

The Duty Of A Judge Is To Administer Justice, But His Practice Is To Delay It

Cheats Easily Believe Others As Bad As Themselves; There Is No Deceiving Them, Nor Do They Long Deceive.

All Of Our Unhappiness Comes From Our Inability To Be Alone.

We Wish To Constitute All The Happiness, Or, If That Cannot Be, The Misery Of The One We Love.

Criticism Is As Often A Trade As A Science, Requiring, As It Does, More Health Than Wit, More Labour Than Capacity, More Practice Than Genius.

When A Plain-looking Woman Is Loved, It Is Certain To Be Very Passionately ; For Either Her Influence On Her Lover Is Irresistible, Or She Has Some Secret And More Irresistible Charms Than Those Of Beauty.

There Is Nothing Men Are So Anxious To Keep, And Yet Are So Careless About, As Life.

You May Drive A Dog Off The King's Armchair, And It Will Climb Into The Preacher's Pulpit; He Views The World Unmoved, Unembarrassed, Unabashed.

Tyranny Has No Need Of Arts Or Sciences, For Its Policy, Which Is Very Shallow And Without Any Refinement, Only Consists In Shedding Blood.

High Birth Is A Gift Of Fortune Which Should Never Challenge Esteem Towards Those Who Receive It, Since It Costs Them Neither Study Nor Labor.

There Is What Is Called The Highway To Posts And Honor, And There Is A Cross And By Way, Which Is Much The Shortest.

When We Are Young We Lay Up For Old Age; When We Are Old We Save For Death.

A Man Of The World Must Seem To Be What He Wishes To Be Thought.

All Men's Misfortunes Spring From Their Hatred Of Being Alone.

The Spendthrift Robs His Heirs The Miser Robs Himself.

The First Day One Is A Guest, The Second A Burden, And The Third A Pest.

Every Man Is Valued In This World As He Shows By His Conduct That He Wishes To Be Valued.

Dissimulation, Even The Most Innocent In Its Nature, Is Ever Productive Of Embarrassment; Whether The Design Is Evil Or Not Artifice Is Always Dangerous And Almost Inevitably Disgraceful.

Logic Is The Art Of Making Truth Prevail.

We Can Recognize The Dawn And The Decline Of Love By The Uneasiness We Feel When Alone Together.

How Sweet, How Passing Sweet, Is Solitude!

The Highest Reach Of A News-writer Is An Empty Reasoning On Policy, And Vain Conjectures On The Public Management.

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.

The Lives Of Heroes Have Enriched History, And History Has Adorned The Actions Of Heroes ; And Thus I Cannot Say Whether The Historians Are More Indebted To Those Who Provided Them With Such Noble Materials, Or Those Great Men To Their Historians.

The Most Accomplished Literary Work Would Be Reduced To Nothing By Carping Criticism, If The Author Would Listen To All Critics And Allow Every One To Erase The Passage Which Pleases Him The Least.

In Friendship We Only See Those Faults Which May Be Prejudicial To Our Friends. In Love We See No Faults But Those By Which We Suffer Ourselves.

We Never Deceive For A Good Purpose: Knavery Adds Malice To Falsehood.

Women Are At Little Trouble To Express What They Do Not Feel; But Men Are Still At Less To Express What They Do Feel.

A Woman Is Easily Governed, If A Man Takes Her In Hand.

The Doctors Allow One To Die, The Charlatans Kill.

A Good Saying Often Runs The Risk Of Being Thrown Away When Quoted As The Speaker's Own. [fr., C'est Souvent Hasarder Un Bon Mot Et Vouloir Le Perdre Que De Le Donner Pour Sien.]

There Is Nothing Which Continues Longer Than A Moderate Fortune; Nothing Of Which One Sees Sooner The End Than A Large Fortune.

It Is A Sad Thing When Men Have Neither Enough Intelligence To Speak Well Nor Enough Sense To Hold Their Tongues; This Is The Root Of All Impertinence.

Mockery Is Often The Result Of A Poverty Of Wit.

It Is In Vain To Ridicule A Rich Fool, For The Laughers Will Be On His Side.

It Is Virtue Which Should Determine Us In The Choice Of Our Friends, Without Inquiring Into Their Good Or Evil Fortune.

We Must Confess That At Present The Rich Predominate, But The Future Will Be For The Virtuous And Ingenious.

A Prince Wants Only The Pleasure Of Private Life To Complete His Happiness.

A Man Of Moderate Understanding, Thinks He Writes Divinely: A Man Of Good Understanding, Thinks He Writes Reasonably.

When A Work Lifts Your Spirits And Inspires Bold And Noble Thoughts In You, Do Not Look For Any Other Standard To Judge By: The Work Is Good, The Product Of A Master Craftsman.

It Is A Great Misfortune Neither To Have Enough Wit To Talk Well Nor Enough Judgment To Be Silent.

It Is A Proof Of Boorishness To Confer A Favor With A Bad Grace; It Is The Act Of Giving That Is Hard And Painful. How Little Does A Smile Cost?

There Is No Excess In The World So Commendable As Excessive Gratitude.

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.

I Take Sanctuary In An Honest Mediocrity.

A Man Of Variable Mind Is Not One Man, But Several Men In One; He Multiplies Himself As Often As He Changes His Taste And Manners; He Is Not This Minute What He Was The Last, And Will Not Be The Next What He Is Now; He Is His Own Successor.

As A Man Falls Out Of Favour And His Wealth Declines, We Discover For The First Time The Ridiculous Aspects Of His Character, Which Were Always There But Which Wealth And Favour Had Concealed.

All The Worth Of Some People Lies In Their Name; Upon A Closer Inspection It Dwindles To Nothing, But From A Distance It Deceives Us.

When, After Having Read A Work, Loftier Thoughts Arise In Your Mind And Noble And Heartfelt Feelings Animate You, Do Not Look For Any Other Rule To Judge It By; It Is Fine And Written In A Masterly Manner.

We Confide Our Secret To A Friend, But In Love It Escapes Us.

The Nearer We Approach Great Men, The Clearer We See That They Are Men.

We Ought Not To Make Those People Our Enemies Who Might Have Become Our Friends, If We Had Only Known Them Better.

Some People Pretend They Never Were In Love And Never Wrote Poetry; Two Weaknesses Which They Dare Not Own -- One Of The Heart, The Other Of The Mind.

When We Are Dead We Are Praised By Those Who Survive Us, Though We Frequently Have No Other Merit Than That Of Being No Longer Alive.

There Is As Much Trickery Required To Grow Rich By A Stupid Book As There Is Folly In Buying It.

Avoid Making Yourself The Subject Of Conversation.

How Much Wit, Good-nature, Indulgences, How Many Good Offices And Civilities, Are Required Among Friends To Accomplish In Some Years What A Lovely Face Or A Fine Hand Does In A Minute!

Duty Is What Goes Most Against The Grain, Because In Doing That We Do Only What We Are Strictly Obliged To, And Are Seldom Much Praised For It.

A Man Is Rich Whose Income Is Larger Than His Expenses, And He Is Poor If His Expenses Are Greater Than His Income.

A Wise Man Is Not Governed By Others, Nor Does He Try To Govern Them; He Prefers That Reason Alone Prevail.

We Should Only Endeavour To Think And Speak Correctly Ourselves, Without Wishing To Bring Others Over To Our Taste And Opinions.

To Bewail The Loss Of A Person We Love Is A Happiness Compared With The Necessity Of Living With One We Hate.

Life Is Short And Tedious, And Is Wholly Spent In Wishing; We Trust To Find Rest And Enjoyment At Some Future Time, Often At An Age When Our Best Blessings, Youth And Health, Have Already Left Us. When At Last I That Time Has Arrived, It Surprises Us In The Midst Of Fresh Desires; We Have Got No Farther When We Are Attacked By A Fever Which Kills Us; If We Had Been Cured, It Would Only Have Been To Give Us More Time For Other Desires.

Such A Great Misfortune, Not To Be Able To Be Alone.

A Show Of A Certain Amount Of Honesty Is In Any Profession Or Business The Surest Way Of Growing Rich.

A Man Often Runs The Risk Of Throwing Away A Witticism If He Admits That It Is His Own.

Rarely Do They Appear Great Before Their Valets.

During The Course Of Our Life We Now And Then Enjoy Some Pleasures So Inviting, And Have Some Encounters Of So Tender A Nature, That Though They Are Forbidden, It Is But Natural To Wish That They Were At Least Allowable. Nothing Can Be More Delightful, Except It Be To Abandon Them For Virtue's Sake.

It's Motive Alone Which Gives Character To The Actions Of Men.

Eminent Station Makes Great Men More Great, And Little Ones Less.

If A Secret Is Revealed, The Person Who Has Confided It To Another Is To Be Blamed.

The Mind, Like All Other Things, Will Become Impaired, The Sciences Are Its Food,--they Nourish, But At The Same Time They Consume It.

The Fool Only Is Troublesome. A Plan Of Sense Perceives When He Is Agreeable Or Tiresome; He Disappears The Very Minute Before He Would Have Been Thought To Have Stayed Too Long.

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.

Eloquence May Be Found In Conversations And In All Kinds Of Writings; It Is Rarely Found When Looked For, And Sometimes Discovered Where It Is Least Expected.

We Are Valued In This World At The Rate We Desire To Be Valued.

Nothing Keeps Longer Than A Middling Fortune, And Nothing Melts Away Sooner Than A Large One.

There Exist Some Evils So Terrible And Some Misfortunes So Horrible That We Dare Not Think Of Them, Whilst Their Very Aspect Makes Us Shudder; But If They Happen To Fall On Us, We Find Ourselves Stronger Than We Imagined, We Grapple With Our Ill Luck, And Behave Better Than We Expected We Should.

The Same Amount Of Pride Which Makes A Man Treat Haughtily His Inferiors, Makes Him Cringe Servilely; To Those Above Him.

A Woman With Eyes Only For One Person, Or With Eyes Always Averted From Him, Creates Exactly The Same Impression.

Out Of Difficulties Grow Miracles.

Don't Wait To Be Happy To Laugh... You May Die And Never Have Laughed.

A Coxcomb Is One Whom Simpletons Believe To Be A Man Of Merit.

Children Have Neither Past Nor Future; They Enjoy The Present, Which Very Few Of Us Do.

Genius And Great Abilities Are Often Wanting; Sometimes, Only Opportunities. Some Deserve Praise For What They Have Done; Others For What They Would Have Done.

The Court Is Like A Palace Of Marble; It's Composed Of People Very Hard And Very Polished.

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.

A Man Only Goes And Confesses His Faults To The World When His Self Will Not Acknowledge Or Listen To Them. Wyndham Lewis, Tarr Two Persons Will Not Be Friends Long If They Are Not Inclined To Pardon Each Other's Little Failings.

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.

Life Is Short, If We Are Only Said To Live When We Enjoy Ourselves; And If We Were Merely To Count Up The Hours We Spent Agreeably, A Great Number Of Years Would Hardly Make Up A Life Of A Few Months.

The Sweetest Of All Sounds Is That Of The Voice Of The Woman We Love.

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 Long Disease Seems To Be A Halting Place Between Life And Death, That Death Itself May Be A Comfort To Those Who Die And To Those Who Are Left Behind.

Languages Are No More Than The Keys Of Sciences. He Who Despises One, Slights The Other.

Jesting Is Often Only Indigence Of Intellect.

The Same Vices Which Are Huge And Insupportable In Others We Do Not Feel In Ourselves.

To Express Truth Is To Write Naturally, Forcibly, And Delicately.

Poverty May Be The Mother Of Crime, But Lack Of Good Sense Is The Father.

Whatever Is Certain In Death Is Slightly Alleviated By What Is Not So Infallible; The Time When It Shall Happen Is Undefined, But It Is More Or Less Connected With The Infinite, And What We Call Eternity.

When We Have Run Through All Forms Of Government, Without Partiality To That We Were Born Under, We Are At A Loss With Which To Side; They Are All A Compound Of Good And Evil. It Is Therefore Most Reasonable And Safe To Value That Of Our Own Country Above All Others, And To Submit To It.

There Are Only Two Ways By Which To Rise In This World, Either By One's Own Industry Or By The Stupidity Of Others.

Grief That Is Dazed And Speechless Is Out Of Fashion: The Modern Woman Mourns Her Husband Loudly And Tells You The Whole Story Of His Death, Which Distresses Her So Much That She Forgets Not The Slightest Detail About It.

The Greatest Part Of Mankind Employ Their First Years To Make Their Last Miserable.

Two Quite Opposite Qualities Equally Bias Our Minds - Habits And Novelty.

A Position Of Eminence Makes A Great Person Greater And A Small Person Less.

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.

They That Have Lived A Single Day Have Lived An Age.

If Our Life Is Unhappy It Is Painful To Bear; If It Is Happy It Is Horrible To Lose, So The One Is Pretty Equal To The Other.

Eloquence Is To The Sublime What The Whole Is To The Part.

Discourtesy Does Not Spring Merely From One Bad Quality, But From Several--from Foolish Vanity, From Ignorance Of What Is Due To Others, From Indolence, From Stupidity, From Distraction Of Thought, From Contempt Of Others, From Jealousy.

A Dogmatic Tone Is Generally Inspired By Abysmal Ignorance. The Man Who Knows Nothing Thinks He Is Informing Others Of Something Which He Has That Moment Learnt; The Man Who Knows A Great Deal Can Scarcely Believe That People Are Ignorant Of What He Is Telling Them, And Speaks More Diffidently.

A Simple Garb Is The Proper Costume Of The Vulgar; It Is Cut For Them, And Exactly Suits Their Measure, But It Is An Ornament For Those Who Have Filled Up Their Lives With Great Deeds. I Liken Them To Beauty In Dishabille, But More Bewitching On That Account.

A Man Must Have Very Eminent Qualities To Hold His Own Without Being Polite.

A Pious Man Is One Who Would Be An Atheist If The King Were.

Women Become Attached To Men By The Intimacies They Grant Them; Men Are Cured Of Their Love By The Same Intimacies.

The Very Essence Of Politeness Seems To Be To Take Care That By Our Words And Actions We Make Other People Pleased With Us As Well As With Themselves.

Wit Is The God Of Moments, But Genius Is The God Of Ages.

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.

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.]

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.

Some Men Promise To Keep Your Secret And Yet Reveal It Without Knowing They Are Doing So; They Do Not Wag Their Lips, And Yet They Are Understood; It Is Read On Their Brow And In Their Eyes; It Is Seen Through Their Breast; They Are Transparent.

He Who Knows How To Wait For What He Desires Does Not Feel Very Desperate If He Fails In Obtaining It; And He, On The Contrary, Who Is Very Impatient In Procuring A Certain Thing, Takes So Much Pains About It, That, Even When He Is Successful, He Does Not Think Himself Sufficiently Rewarded.

A Lofty Birth Or A Large Fortune Portend Merit, And Cause It To Be The Sooner Noticed.

We Trust Our Secrets To Our Friends, But They Escape From Us In Love.

Men Fall From Great Fortune Because Of The Same Shortcomings That Led To Their Rise.

The Events We Most Desire Do Not Happen; Or, If They Do, It Is Neither In The Time Nor In The Circumstances When They Would Have Given Us Extreme Pleasure.

To Give Awkwardly Is Churlishness. The Most Difficult Part Is To Give, Then Why Not Add A Smile?

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.

Making A Book Is A Craft, Like Making A Clock; It Needs More Than Native Wit To Be An Author.

Children Are Overbearing, Supercilious, Passionate, Envious, Inquisitive, Egotistical, Idle, Fickle, Timid, Intemperate, Liars, And Dissemblers; They Laugh And Weep Easily, Are Excessive In Their Joys And Sorrows, And That About The Most Trifling Objects; They Bear No Pain, But Like To Inflict It On Others; Already They Are Men.

Love Has This In Common With Scruples, That It Becomes Embittered By The Reflections And The Thoughts That Beset Us To Free Ourselves.

It Is No More In Our Power To Love Always Than It Was Not To Love At All.

When A Book Raises Your Spirit, And Inspires You With Noble And Manly Thoughts, Seek For No Other Test Of Its Excellence. It Is Good, And Made By A Good Workman.

There Are But Two Ways Of Rising In The World: Either By One's Own Industry Or Profiting By The Foolishness Of Others. [fr., Il N'y A Au Monde Que Deux Manieres De S'elever, Ou Par Sa Propre Industrie, Ou Par L'imbecilite Des Autres.]

The News-writer Lies Down At Night In Great Tranquillity, Upon A Piece Of News Which Corrupts Before Morning, And Which He Is Obliged To Throw Away As Soon As He Awakes.

Every Hour In Itself, As It Respects Us In Particular, Is The Only One We Can Call Our Own.

It Seems To Me That The Spirit Of Politeness Is A Certain Attention In Causing That, By Our Words And By Our Manners, Others May Be Content With Us And With Themselves.

It Is Because Of Men That Women Dislike One Another.

The Great Charm Of Conversation Consists Less In The Display Of One's Own Wit And Intelligence Than In The Power To Draw Forth The Resources Of Others.

The Finest Pleasure Is Kindness To Others.

It Is Easier To Enrich Ourselves With A Thousand Virtues, Than To Correct Ourselves Of A Single Fault.

Let Us Not Complain Against Men Because Otheir Rudeness, Their Ingratitude, Their Injustice, Their Arrogance, Their Love Oself, Their Forgetfulness Oothers. They Are So Made. Such Is Their Nature.

We Hope To Grow Old And We Dread Old Age; That Is To Say, We Love Life And We Flee From Death.

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.

A Man Can Deceive A Woman By His Sham Attachment To Her Provided He Does Not Have A Real Attachment Elsewhere.

The Most Important Things Must Be Said Simply, For They Are Spoiled By Bombast; Whereas Trivial Things Must Be Described Grandly, For They Are Supported Only By Aptness Of Expression, Tone And Manner.

Two Persons Cannot Long Be Friends If They Cannot Forgive Each Other's Little Failings.

It Is The Glory And Merit Of Some Men To Write Well And Of Others Not To Write At All.

When A Secret Is Revealed, It Is The Fault Of The Man Who Confided It.

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.

Men Make The Best Friends.

There Is Not In The World So Toilsome A Trade As The Pursuit Of Fame; Life Concludes Before You Have So Much As Sketched Your Work.

One Should Never Risk A Joke, Even Of The Mildest And Most Unexceptional Charters, Except Among People Of Culture And Wit.

A Man May Doubt Of God's Existence When He Is In Good Health, Just As He May Doubt Whether His Relation With A Harlot Is Sinful. When He Falls Ill, When Dropsy Develops, He Leaves His Concubine, And He Believes In God.

We Seldom Repent Of Speaking Little, Very Often Of Speaking Too Much: A Vulgar And Trite Maxim, Which All The World Knows And, But Which All The World Does Not Practice

Those Who Make The Worst Use Of Their Time Are The First To Complain Of Its Shortness.

Life Is Too Short

Great Things Astonish Us, And Small Dishearten Us. Custom Makes Both Familiar.

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.

Profound Ignorance Makes A Man Dogmatic. The Man Who Knows Nothing Thinks He Is Teaching Others What He Has Just Learned Himself; The Man Who Knows A Great Deal Can't Imagine That What He Is Saying Is Not Common Knowledge, And Speaks More Indifferently.

The Most Exquisite Pleasure Is Giving Pleasure To Others.

There Is No Employment In The World So Laborious As That Of Making To One's Self A Great Name; Life Ends Before One Has Scarcely Made The First Rough Draught Of His Work.

There Is A False Modesty, Which Is Vanity; A False Glory, Which Is Levity; A False Grandeur, Which Is Meanness; A False Virtue, Which Is Hypocrisy, And A False Wisdom, Which Is Prudery.

Rarely Do They Appear Great Before Their Valets. [fr., Rarement Ils Sont Grands Vis-a-vis De Leur Valets-de-chambre.]

Trending Author

Marina And The Diamonds

Witold Gombrowicz

Category