The "Characters" of Jean De La Bruyère
1688
The "Characters" of Jean De La Bruyère
1688
Translated by Henri Van Laun
In the glittering court of Louis XIV, La Bruyère turned his gimlet eye on the species and found it wanting. His Characters are pitiless sketches of the vain, the grasping, the self-important, the mediocre convinced of their genius. Each portrait is a composite, drawn from dozens of real courtiers, yet recognizable across any century: the man who mentions his connections in every conversation, the woman whose charity is pure vanity, the poet certain of his immortality despite producing only dust. La Bruyère writes with the cool precision of an entomologist pinning specimens, yet there's real moral anguish beneath his wit. He hates what he sees but cannot stop looking. What makes this 1688 text endure is not its historical value but its diagnostic power. The diseases he catalogued have not been cured. We have only new venues for our vanity. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand not just 17th-century France, but the engine of human self-regard that powers every age.
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“Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.””
— Jean de La Bruyère
“Not to be able to bear with all bad-tempered people with whom the world is crowded, shows that a man has not a good temper himself.””
— Jean de La Bruyère
“The pleasure of criticism takes away from us the pleasure of being deeply moved by very fine things.””
— Jean de La Bruyère
“A man is rich whose income is larger than his expenses, and he is poor if his expenses are greater than his income.””
— Jean de La Bruyère
“No vice exists which does not pretend to be more or less like some virtue, and which docs not take advantage of this assumed resemblance.””
— Jean de La Bruyère
“[Il ne manque cependant à l'oisiveté du sage qu'un meilleur nom, et que méditer, parler, lire, et être tranquille s'appelât travailler.]There is, however, nothing wanting to the idleness of a philosopher but a better name, and that meditation, conversation, and reading should be called “work”.””
— Jean de La Bruyère
“Une froideur ou une incivilité qui vient de ceux qui sont au-dessus de nous nous les fait haïr, mais un salut ou un sourire nous les réconcilie.””
— Jean de La Bruyère
“The same common-sense which makes an author write good things, makes him dread they are not good enough to deserve reading.””
— Jean de La Bruyère
“Men are willing to be slaves in one place if they can only lord it in another.””
— Jean de La Bruyère
