“There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence.”

— Jean de La Bruyère , book Les Caractères

Aphorism 7
Les Caractères (1688), Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit
Context: 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!

Original

Il y a de certaines choses dont la médiocrité est insupportable: la poésie, la musique, la peinture, le discours public. Quel supplice que celui d'entendre déclamer pompeusement un froid discours, ou prononcer de médiocres vers avec toute l'emphase d'un mauvais poète!

Les Caractères (1688), Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit

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Jean de La Bruyère 65

17th-century French writer and philosopher 1645–1696

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“There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence.”

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Jean de La Bruyère 65

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