Jean de La Bruyere

Jean de La Bruyere (1645-1696) was a celebrated French moralist, born at Paris. He was tutor to the Duke of Bourbon, the grandson of the great Condé, and spent a great part of his life in Paris in connection with the Condé family. His most celebrated work is "Les Caractères de Théophrastus" (1687), which abounds in wise maxims and reflections on life, but gave offence to contemporaries by the personal satires in it under disguised names. He ranks high as a writer no less than as a moralist. His style is "a model of ease, grace, and fluency, without weakness in his characters; a book," adds Professor Saintsbury, "most interesting to read, and especially to Englishmen".

Wisdom & Quotes

From Les Caracteres

• There is no business in the world so troublesome as the pursuit of fame: life is over before you have hardly begun your work.
• One must laugh before one is happy or one may die without ever having laughed at all.
• Logic is the art of making truth prevail.
• There are certain things in which mediocrity is insupportable - poetry, music, painting, public speaking.
• Men fall from great fortune because of the same shortcomings that led to their rise.
• There are some who speak one moment before they think.
• The exact opposite of what is generally believed is often the truth.
• Women run to extremes; they are either better or worse then men.

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz