Jean de La Bruyere

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

Time, which strengthens friendship, weakens love.

Making a book is a craft, as is making a clock; it takes more than wit to become an author.

It is the glory and merit of some men to write well and of others not to write at all.

At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.

He who can wait for what he desires takes the course not to be exceedingly grieved if he fails of it; he, on the contrary, who labors after a thing too impatiently thinks the success when it comes is not a recompense equal to all the pains he has been at about it.

Children have neither past nor future; and that which seldom happens to us, they rejoice in the present.

We come too late to say anything which has not been said already.

The shortest and best way to make your fortune is to let people see clearly that it is in their interests to promote yours.

There is nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a great one. Poverty treads on the heels of great and unexpected riches.