Jean de La Bruyère: Quotes about men

Jean de La Bruyère was 17th-century French writer and philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on men.
Jean de La Bruyère: 130 quotes5 likes

“What a vast advantage has a speech over a written composition. Men are imposed upon by voice and gesture, and by all that is conducive to enhance the performance.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Aphorism 27
Les Caractères (1688), De la chaire
Context: What a vast advantage has a speech over a written composition. Men are imposed upon by voice and gesture, and by all that is conducive to enhance the performance. Any little prepossession in favor of the speaker raises their admiration, and then they do their best to comprehend him; they commend his performance before he has begun, but they soon fall off asleep, doze all the time he is preaching, and only wake to applaud him. An author has no such passionate admirers; his works are read at leisure in the country or in the solitude of the study; no public meetings are held to applaud him.... However excellent his book may be, it is read with the intention of finding it but middling; it is perused, discussed, and compared to other works; a book is not composed of transient sounds lost in the air and forgotten; what is printed remains.

“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”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Aphorism 17
Les Caractères (1688), Du mérite personnel
Context: 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.

“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.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Aphorism 22
Les Caractères (1688), Du mérite personnel
Context: 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.

“Women run to extremes; they are either better or worse than men.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Les femmes sont extrêmes: elles sont meilleures ou pires que les hommes.
Aphorism 53
Les Caractères (1688), Des Femmes

“Let us not envy a certain class of men for their enormous riches; they have paid such an equivalent for them that it would not suit us; they have given for them their peace of mind, their health, their honour, and their conscience; this is rather too dear, and there is nothing to be made out of such a bargain.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

N'envions point à une sorte de gens leurs grandes richesses; ils les ont à titre onéreux, et qui ne nous accommoderait point: ils ont mis leur repos, leur santé, leur honneur et leur conscience pour les avoir; cela est trop cher, et il n'y a rien à gagner à un tel marché.
Aphorism 13
Les Caractères (1688), Des biens de fortune

“I call those men worldly, earthly, or coarse, whose hearts and minds are wholly fixed on this earth, that small part of the universe they are placed in; who value and love nothing beyond it; whose minds are as cramped as that narrow spot of ground they call their estate, of which the extent is measured, the acres are numbered, and the limits well known. I am not astonished that men who lean, as it were, on an atom, should stumble at the smallest efforts they make for discovering the truth; that, being so short-sighted, they do not reach beyond the heavens and the stars, to contemplate God Himself; that, not being able to perceive the excellency of what is spiritual, or the dignity of the soul, they should be still less sensible of the difficulty of satisfying it; how very inferior the entire world is in comparison to it; how necessary is to it an all-perfect Being, which is God; and how absolutely it needs a religion to find out that God, and to be assured of His reality. I can easily understand that incredulity or indifference are but natural to such men, that they make use of God and religion only as a piece of policy, as far as they may be conducive to the order and decorum of this world, the only thing in their opinion worth thinking of.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Of Freethinkers (3)
Les Caractères (1688)

“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.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

18
Variant translation:
It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well, nor the judgment to hold their tongues.
As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: being A Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern (1908) edited by Tryon Edwards, p. 560
Les Caractères (1688), De la société et de la conversation

“Some men speak one moment before they think; others tediously study everything they say, and in conversation bore us as painfully as was the travail of their mind; they are, as it were, made up of phrases and quaint expressions, whilst their gestures are as affected as their behaviour. They call themselves "purists," and do not venture to say the most trifling word not in use, however expressive it may be. Nothing comes from them worth remembering, nothing is spontaneous and unrestrained; they speak correctly, but they are very tiresome.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

15
Les Caractères (1688), De la société et de la conversation

“The heroic virtues of some great men have been the cause of the corruption of eloquence, or have, at least, enervated the style of most preachers. Instead of joining with the people in rendering thanks to Heaven for the extraordinary gifts it has bestowed on those great men, these very preachers have enrolled themselves among authors and poets, and become panegyrists; they have even uttered more extravagant praises than are found in dedications, verses, or prologues; they have turned the Word of God into a whole warp of praises, which, though well deserved, are out of place, bestowed from selfish motives, not required, and ill-suited to their calling. It is fortunate indeed, if, while they are celebrating their heroes in the sanctuary, they even mention the name of that God or of that religion they ought to preach. Some have wished to preach the Gospel, which is for all men, only to one person, and have been so disconcerted when by accident that person was kept away, that they were unable to pronounce a Christian discourse before an assembly of Christian men, because it was not prepared for them, so that other orators have been obliged to take their places, who had only sufficient leisure to praise God in an extemporary exhortation.!”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Of the Pulpit (13)
Les Caractères (1688)

“Lofty posts make great men greater still, and small men much smaller.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Ainsi les postes éminents rendent les grands hommes encore plus grands, et les petits beaucoup plus petits.
Aphorism 95
Les Caractères (1688), De l'Homme

“To laugh at men of sense is the privilege of fools.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Rire des gens d'esprit, c'est le privilège des sots.
56
Les Caractères (1688), De la société et de la conversation

“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.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Rien ne fait mieux comprendre le peu de chose que Dieu croit donner aux hommes, en leur abandonnant les richesses, l'argent, les grands établissements et les autres biens, que la dispensation qu'il en fait, et le genre d'hommes qui en sont le mieux pourvus.
Aphorism 24
Les Caractères (1688), Des biens de fortune

“Most men make use of the first part of their life to render the last part miserable.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

Aphorism 102
Les Caractères (1688), De l'Homme