Jean de La Bruyère

Regretter ce que l'on aime est un bien, en comparaison de vivre avec ce que l'on hait.

There are a great many obscene minds, yet more railing and satirical, but very few fastidious ones. A man must have good manners, be very polite, and even have a great deal of originality to be able to jest gracefully and be felicitous in his remarks about trifles; to jest in such a manner and to make something out of nothing is to create.

В жизни нередки случаи, когда женщина изо всех сил скрывает страсть, которую испытывает к мужчине, в то время как он так же прилежно разыгрывает любовь, которой вовсе к ней не чувствует.

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.

The unnamed should not be mistaken for the nonexistent.

A fool is an automaton, a machine with springs which turn him about always in one manner, and preserve his equilibrium. He is ever the same, and never changes. If you have seen him once you have seen him at every moment and period of his life. He is at best but as the lowing ox or the whistling blackbird. He is fixed and obstinate, I may say, by nature. What appears least in him is his soul; that has neither activity nor energy; it reposes.

La gloria o el mérito de ciertos hombres consiste en escribir bien; el de otros consiste en no escribir.

Everything has been said, and we are more than seven thousand years of human thought too late.

The pleasure of criticizing takes away from us the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things.

La plupart des hommes emploient la meilleure partie de leur vie à rendre l'autre misérable.

Les douleurs muettes et stupides sont hors d'usage: on pleure, on récite, on répète, on est si touchée de la mort de son mari, qu'on n'en oublie pas la moindre circonstance.

[I]l semble que le mariage met tout le monde dans son ordre.

The true spirit of conversation consists more in bringing out the cleverness of others than in showing a great deal of it yourself; he who goes away pleased with himself and his own wit is also greatly pleased with you. Most men would rather please than admire you; they seek less to be instructed, and even to be amused, than to be praised and applauded.

La fausse grandeur est farouche et inaccessible: comme elle sent son faible, elle se cache, ou du moins ne se montre pas de front, et ne se fait voir qu'autant qu'il faut pour imposer et ne paraître point ce qu'elle est, je veux dire une vraie petitesse. La véritable grandeur est libre, douce, familière, populaire; elle se laisse toucher et manier, elle ne perd rien à être vue de près; plus on la connaît, plus on l'admire.

As favour and riches forsake a man, we discover in him the foolishness they concealed, and which no one perceived before.