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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.

-Jean De La Bruyere

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Life Is Short And

Jean De La Bruyere

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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.

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Avoid Lawsuits Beyond All Things; They Pervert Your Conscience, Impair Your Health, And Dissipate Your Property.

A Man Who Has Schemed For Some Time Can No Longer Do Without It; All Other Ways Of Living Are To Him Dull And Insipid.

It Is Difficult For A Proud Man Ever To Forgive A Person Who Has Found Him At Fault, And Who Has Good Grounds For Complaining Of Him; His Pride Is Not Assuaged Till He Has Regained The Advantages He Lost And Put The Other Person In The Wrong.

At The Beginning And At The End Of Love, The Two Lovers Are Embarrassed To Find Themselves Alone.

A Vain Man Finds His Account In Speaking Good Or Evil Of Himself.

False Greatness Is Unsociable And Remote: Conscious Of Its Own Frailty, It Hides, Or At Least Averts Its Face, And Reveals Itself Only Enough To Create An Illusion And Not Be Recognized As The Meanness That It Really Is. True Greatness Is Free, Kind, Familiar And Popular; It Lets Itself Be Touched And Handled, It Loses Nothing By Being Seen At Close Quarters; The Better One Knows It, The More One Admires It.

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.]

What The People Call Eloquence Is The Facility Some Persons Have Of Speaking Alone And For A Long Time, Aided By Extravagant Gestures, A Loud Voice, And Powerful Lungs.

It Is Worse To Apprehend Than To Suffer.

Politeness Does Not Always Inspire Goodness, Equity, Complaisance, And Gratitude; It Gives At Least The Appearance Of These Qualities, And Makes Man Appear Outwardly, As He Should Be Within.

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

A Man Can Keep Another's Secret Better Than His Own. A Woman Her Own Better Than Others.

Keeping Secrets

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.

Most Men Spend The Best Part Of Their Lives Making The Remaining Part Wretched.

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

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.

For A Long Time Visits Among Lovers And Professions Of Love Are Kept Up Through Habit, After Their Behavior Has Plainly Proved That Love No Longer Exists.

The Nearer We Come To Great Men The More Clearly We See That They Are Only Men. They Rarely Seem Great To Their Valets.

We Meet With Few Utterly Dull And Stupid Souls: The Sublime And Transcendent Are Still Fewer; The Generality Of Mankind Stand Between These Two Extremes: The Interval Is Filled With Multitudes Of Ordinary Geniuses, But All Very Useful, And The Ornaments And Supports Of The Commonwealth.

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

Courtly Manners Are Contagious; They Are Caught At Versailles.

Men Are The Cause Of Women Not Loving One Another. [fr., Les Hommes Sont La Cause Que Les Femmes Ne S'aiment Point.]

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

Logic Is The Art Of Convincing Us Some Truth.

Discretion Is The Perfection Of Reason, And A Guide To Us In All The Duties Of Life; Cunning Is A Kind Of Instinct, That Only Looks Out After Our Immediate Interests And Welfare. Discretion Is Only Found In Men Of Strong Sense And Good Understanding; Cunning Is Often To Be Met With In Brutes Themselves, And In Persons Who Are But The Fewest Removes From Them.

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.

The Doctors Allow One To Die, The Charlatans Kill.

A Man Reveals His Character Even In The Simplest Things He Does.

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.

A Guilty Man Is Punished As An Example For The Mob; An Innocent Man Convicted Is The Business Of Every Honest Citizen.

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.

Both As To High And Low Indifferently, Men Are Prepossessed, Charmed, Fascinated By Success; Successful Crimes Are Praised Very Much Like Virtue Itself, And Good Fortune Is Not Far From Occupying The Place Of The Whole Cycle Of Virtues. It Must Be An Atrocious Act, A Base And Hateful Deed, Which Success Would Not Be Able To Justify.

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.]

When We Lavish Our Money We Rob Our Heir; When We Merely Save It We Rob Ourselves.

For Some People, Speaking And Giving Offence Are One And The Same Thing. They Are Spiteful And Bitter; Their Style Is Infused With Gall And Wormwood; Mockery, Abuse And Insults Flow From Their Lips Like Spittle.

Time Makes Friendship Stronger, But Love Weaker.

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

Party Loyalty Lowers The Greatest Men To The Petty Level Of The Masses.

The Passion Of Hatred Is So Long Lived And So Obstinate A Malady That The Surest Sign Of Death In A Sick Person Is Their Desire For Reconciliation.

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

That Man Is Good Who Does Good To Others; If He Suffers On Account Of The Good He Does, He Is Very Good; If He Suffers At The Hands Of Those To Whom He Has Done Good, Then His Goodness Is So Great That It Could Be Enhanced Only By Greater Sufferings; And If He Should Die At Their Hands, His Virtue Can Go No Further: It Is Heroic, It Is Perfect.

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.

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.

Nothing Makes Us Better Understand What Trifling Things Providence Thinks He Bestows On Men In Granting Them Wealth, Money, Dignities, And Other Advantages, Than The Manner In Which They Are Distributed And The Kind Of Men Who Have The Largest Share.

A Man Unattached And Without Wife, If He Have Any Genius At All, May Raise Himself Above His Original Position, May Mingle With The World Of Fashion, And Hold Himself On A Level With The Highest; This Is Less Easy For Him Who Is Engaged; It Seems As If Marriage Put The Whole World In Their Proper Rank.

Everything Has Been Said, And We Have Come Too Late, Now That Men Have Been Living And Thinking For Seven Thousand Years And More.

Anything Is A Temptation To Those Who Dread It.

The Beginning And The End Of Love Are Both Marked By Embarrassment When The Two Find Themselves Alone. [fr., Le Commencement Et Le Declin De L'amour Se Font Sentir Par L'embarras Ou L'on Est De Se Trouver Seuls.]

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

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.]

Women Are Extreme; They Are Better Than Men, Or Worse.

A Fool Is One Whom Simpletons Believe To Be A Man On Merit. [fr., Un Fat Celui Que Les Sots Croient Un Homme De Merite.]

The Art Of Conversation Consists Far Less In Displaying Much Wit Oneself Than In Helping Others To Be Witty: The Man Who Leaves Your Company Pleased With Himself And His Own Wit Is Very Well Pleased With You.

If It Be Usual To Be Strongly Impressed By Things That Are Scarce, Why Are We So Little Impressed By Virtue?

Sudden Love Is Latest Cured.

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

Let Us Not Envy Some Men Their Accumulated Riches; Their Burden Would Be Too Heavy For Us; We Could Not Sacrifice, As They Do, Health, Quiet, Honor And Conscience, To Obtain Them: It Is To Pay So Dear From Them That The Bargain Is A Loss.

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

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.

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

A Man Who Knows The Court Is Master Of His Gestures, Of His Eyes And Of His Face; He Is Profound, Impenetratable; He Dissimulates Bad Offices, Smiles At His Enemies, Controls His Irritation, Disguises His Passions, Belies His Heartm Speaks And Acts Against His Feelings.

A Heap Of Epithets Is Poor Praise: The Praise Lies In The Facts, And In The Way Of Telling Them.

From Time To Time There Appear On The Face Of The Earth Men Of Rare And Consummate Excellence, Who Dazzle Us By Their Virtue, And Whose Outstanding Qualities Shed A Stupendous Light. Like Those Extraordinary Stars Of Whose Origins We Are Ignorant, And Of Whose Fate, Once They Have Vanished, We Know Even Less, Such Men Have Neither Forebears Nor Descendants: They Are The Whole Of Their Race.

The Best Thing Next To Wit Is A Consciousness That It Is Not In Us; Without Wit, A Man Might Then Know How To Behave Himself, So As Not To Appear To Be A Fool Or A Coxcomb.

We Need Not Envy Certain People Their Great Wealth; They Acquired It At A Heavy Cost, Which Would Not Suit Us; They Staked Their Rest, Their Health, Their Honour And Their Conscience To Acquire It, The Price Is Too High, And There Is Nothing To Be Gained By Such A Bargain.

Mockery Is Often The Result Of A Poverty Of Wit.

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

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.

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.

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

There Are Certain Things In Which Mediocrity Is Intolerable: Poetry, Music, Painting, Public Eloquence. What Torture It Is To Hear A Frigid Speech Being Pompously Declaimed, Or Second-rate Verse Spoken With All A Bad Poet's Bombast!

Even The Best Intentioned Of Great Men Need A Few Scoundrels Around Them; There Are Some Things You Cannot Ask An Honest Ma To Do.

Great Things Only Require To Be Simply Told, For They Are Spoiled By Emphasis; But Little Things Should Be Clothed In Lofty Language, As They Are Only Kept Up By Expression, Tone Of Voice, And Style Of Delivery.

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

It Is Too Much For A Husband To Have A Wife Who Is A Coquette And Sanctimonious As Well; She Should Select Only One Of Those Qualities.

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

Children Are Contemptuous, Haughty, Irritable, Envious, Sneaky, Selfish, Lazy, Flighty, Timid, Liars And Hypocrites, Quick To Laugh And Cry, Extreme In Expressing Joy And Sorrow, Especially About Trifles, They'll Do Anything To Avoid Pain But They Enjoy Inflicting It: Little Men Already.

Love, Slow And Gradual In Its Growth, Is Too Much Like Friendship Ever To Be A Violent Passion.

Jesting Is Often Only Indigence Of Intellect.

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

If This Life Is Unhappy, It Is A Burden To Us, Which It Is Difficult To Bear; If It Is In Every Respect Happy, It Is Dreadful To Be Deprived Of It; So That In Either Case The Result Is The Same, For We Must Exist In Anxiety And Apprehension.

We Never Love With All Our Heart And All Our Soul But Once, And That Is The First Time.

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.

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

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.

What Is Certain In Death Is Somewhat Softened By What Is Uncertain; It Is An Indefiniteness In The Time, Which Holds A Certain Relation To The Infinite, And What Is Called Eternity.

Politeness Makes One Appear Outwardly As They Should Be Within.

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

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

Misers Are Neither Relations, Nor Friends, Nor Citizens, Nor Christians, Nor Perhaps Even Human Beings.

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

I Call Worldly Or Earthly Those Whose Minds And Hearts Are Fixed On A Tiny Portion Of This World They Live In, Which Is Our Earth; Who Respect And Love Nothing Beyond It: People As Limited As What They Call Their Property Or Their Estate, Which Can Be Measured, Whose Acres Can Be Counted, Whose Boundaries Can Be Shown.

The Same Common Sense Which Makes An Author Write Good Things, Makes Him Dread They Are Not Good Enough To Deserve Reading.

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.

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

Among Some People Arrogance Supplies The Place Of Grandeur, Inhumanity Of Decision, And Roguery Of Intelligence.

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.

To Endeavor To Forget Anyone Is A Certain Way Of Thinking Of Nothing Else.

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

If Men Wish To Be Held In Esteem, They Must Associate With Those Only Who Are Estimable.

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.]

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

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

A Person's Worth In This World Is Estimated According To The Value He Puts On Himself.

It Is Weakness Which Makes Us Hate An Enemy And Seek Revenge, And It Is Idleness That Pacifies Us And Causes Us To Neglect It.

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.

He Who Can Wait For What He Desires Takes The Course Not To Be Exceedingly Grieved If He Fails Of It; He, On The Contrary, Who Labors After A Thing Too Impatiently Thinks The Success When It Comes Is Not A Recompense Equal To All The Pains He Has Been At About It.

It Is More Or Less Rude To Scorn Indiscriminately All Kinds Of Praise; We Ought To Be Proud Of That Which Comes From Honest Men, Who Praise Sincerely Those Things In Us Which Are Really Commendable.

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

To Delay Is Injustice.

Procrastination

Extremes Are Vicious, And Proceed From Men; Compensation Is Just, And Proceeds From God.

Men Make The Best Friends.

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

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.

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

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

A Vain Man Finds It Wise To Speak Good Or Ill Of Himself; A Modest Man Does Not Talk Of Himself.

It Is Better To Expose Ourselves To Ingratitude Than To Neglect Our Duty To The Distressed.

Avoid Making Yourself The Subject Of Conversation.

Banter Is Often A Proof Of Want Of Intelligence.

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.

It Is Through Madness That We Hate An Enemy, And Think Of Revenging Ourselves; And It Is Through Indolence That We Are Appeased, And Do Not Revenge Ourselves.

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.

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

All Confidence Placed In Another Is Dangerous If It Is Not Perfect, For On Almost All Occasions We Ought To Tell Everything Or To Conceal Everything. We Have Already Told Too Much Of Our Secret, If One Single Circumstance Is To Be Kept Back.

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

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

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

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

The Most Amiable People Are Those Who Least Wound The Self-love Of Others.

If A Handsome Woman Allows That Another Woman Is Beautiful, We May Safely Conclude She Excels Her.

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.

Death Happens But Once, Yet We Feel It Every Moment Of Our Lives; It Is Worse To Dread It Than To Suffer It.

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

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

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

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.

Manners Carry The World For The Moment, Character For All Time.

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

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

Children Enjoy The Present Because They Have Neither A Past Nor A Future.

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.

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.

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!

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.]

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

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.

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.

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.

A Good Author, And One Who Writes Carefully, Often Discovers That The Expression Of Which He Has Been In Search Without Being Able To Discover It, And Which He Has At Last Found, Is That Which Was The Most Simple, The Most Natural, And Which Seems As If It Ought To Have Presented Itself At Once, Without Effort, To The Mind.

There Are Certain People Who So Ardently And Passionately Desire A Thing, That From Dread Of Losing It They Leave Nothing Undone To Make Them Lose It.

There Is A Pleasure In Meeting The Glance Of A Person Whom We Have Lately Laid Under Some Obligations.

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

To Be Among People One Loves, That's Sufficient; To Dream, To Speak To Them, To Be Silent Among Them, To Think Of Indifferent Things; But Among Them, Everything Is Equal.

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

Between Good Sense And Good Taste There Lies The Difference Between A Cause And Its Effect.

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

He Who Only Writes To Suit The Taste Of The Age, Considers Himself More Than His Writings. We Should Always Aim At Perfection, And Then Posterity Will Do Us That Justice Which Sometimes Our Contemporaries Refuse Us.

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.

Criticism Is Often Not A Science; It Is A Craft, Requiring More Good Health Than Wit, More Hard Work Than Talent, More Habit Than Native Genius. In The Hands Of A Man Who Has Read Widely But Lacks Judgment, Applied To Certain Subjects It Can Corrupt Both Its Readers And The Writer Himself.

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

The Most Delicate, The Most Sensible Of All Pleasures, Consists In Promoting The Pleasure Of Others.

People Reveal Their Character Even In The Simplest Things They Do. Fools Do Not Enter A Room, Nor Leave It, Nor Sit Down, Nor Rise, Nor Are They Silent, Nor Do They Stand Up, Like People Of Sense And Understanding.

False Modesty Is The Masterpiece Of Vanity: Showing The Vain Man In Such An Illusory Light That He Appears In The Reputation Of The Virtue Quite Opposite To The Vice Which Constitutes His Real Character; It Is A Deceit.

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.

One Must Laugh Before One Is Happy, Or One May Die Without Ever Laughing At All.

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

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.

It Takes Talent To Please The People In A Sermon By A Flowery Style, A Cheerful Ethic, Brilliant Sallies And Lively Descriptions; But Such A Talent Is Inadequate. A Better Sort Of Talent Neglects These Extraneous Ornaments, Unworthy To Be Used In The Service Of The Gospel: Such A Preacher's Sermon Will Be Simple, Strong And Christian.

The Exact Contrary Of What Is Generally Believed Is Often The Truth.

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

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

It Is A Fool's Privilege To Laugh At An Intelligent Man.

It Is A Great Misfortune Not To Possess Sufficient Wit To Speak Well, Nor Sufficient Judgment To Keep Silent.

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

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.

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.

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

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

The Reason That Women Do Not Love One Another Is - Men.

Love One Another

Nothing More Clearly Shows How Little God Esteems His Gift To Men Of Wealth, Money, Position And Other Worldly Goods, Than The Way He Distributes These, And The Sort Of Men Who Are Most Amply Provided With Them.

Jesting, Often, Only Proves A Want Of Intellect. [fr., La Moquerie Est Souvent Une Indigence D'esprit.]

Love Seizes Us Suddenly, Without Giving Warning, And Our Disposition Or Our Weakness Favors The Surprise; One Look, One Glance, From The Fair Fixes And Determines Us.

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

We Should Like Those Whom We Love To Receive All Their Happiness, Or, If This Were Impossible, All Their Unhappiness From Our Hands.

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.

An Inconstant Woman Is One Who Is No Longer In Love; A False Woman Is One Who Is Already In Love With Another Person; A Fickle Woman Is She Who Neither Knows Whom She Loves Nor Whether She Loves Or Not; And The Indifferent Woman, One Who Does Not Love At All.

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

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

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.

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.

A Mediocre Mind Thinks It Writes Divinely; A Good Mind Thinks It Writes Reasonably.

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.

If It Be True That A Man Is Rich Who Wants Nothing, A Wise Man Is A Very Rich Man.

There Are Few Wives So Perfect As Not To Give Their Husbands At Least Once A Day Good Reason To Repent Of Ever Having Married, Or At Least Of Envying Those Who Are Unmarried.

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

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

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.]

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.

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Franklin Pierce

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