“It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not.”

—  Jean de La Bruyère, book Les Caractères

S'il est heureux d'avoir de la naissance, il ne l'est pas moins d'être tel qu'on ne s'informe plus si vous en avez.
Aphorism 21
Les Caractères (1688), Du mérite personnel

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Jean de La Bruyère65
17th-century French writer and philosopher 1645–1696

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