A Quote by Jean de la Bruyere

There is nothing which continues longer than a moderate fortune; nothing of which one sees sooner the end than a large fortune. — © Jean de la Bruyere
There is nothing which continues longer than a moderate fortune; nothing of which one sees sooner the end than a large fortune.
Nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a large one.
He who asks fortune-tellers the future unwittingly forfeits an inner intimation of coming events that is a thousand times more exact than anything they may say. He is impelled by inertia, rather than curiosity, and nothing is more unlike the submissive apathy with which he hears his fate revealed than the alert dexterity with which the man of courage lays hands on the future.
Nothing is more certain than uncertainties: / Fortune is full of fresh variety; / Constant in nothing but inconstancy.
What do you mean less than nothing? I don't think there is any such thing as less than nothing. Nothing is absolutely the limit of nothingness. It's the lowest you can go. It's the end of the line. How can something be less than nothing? If there were something that was less than nothing, then nothing would not be nothing, it would be something - even though it's just a very little bit of something. But if nothing is nothing, then nothing has nothing that is less than it is.
Luck, if it mean nothing more than an event of which the cause is not apparent, is a term that may be employed without error; but if it means, as it generally does, an event which has no cause at all, a mere chance, it is a bad word, a heathen term; drop it from your vocabulary; trust nothing to luck, nor expect anything from it; avoid all practical use or dependence upon this or its kindred words, fate, chance, fortune.
First the amendment of their own minds. For the removal of the impediments of the mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune than the obtaining fortune will remove the impediments of the mind.
Moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men at their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their fortune.
Great is the good fortune of a state in which the citizens have a moderate and sufficient property.
Fear nothing but what thy industry may prevent; be confident of nothing but what fortune cannot defeat; it is no less folly to fear what is impossible to be avoided than to be secure when there is a possibility to be deprived.
Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.
Nothing detains the reader's attention more powerfully than deep involutions of distress, or sudden vicissitudes of fortune; and these might be abundantly afforded by memoirs of the sons of literature. They are entangled by contracts which they know not how to fulfill, and obliged to write on subjects which they do not understand. Every publication is a new period of time, from which some increase or declension of fame is to be reckoned. The gradations of a hero's life are from battle to battle, and of an author's from book to book.
Everything here below beneath the sun is subject to continual change; and perhaps there is nothing which can be called more inconstant than opinion, which turns round in an everlasting circle like the wheel of fortune. He who reaps praise today is overwhelmed with biting censure tomorrow; today we trample under foot the man who tomorrow will be raised far above us.
He that hath a blind conscience which sees nothing, a dead conscience which feels nothing, and a dumb conscience which says nothing, is in as miserable a condition as a man can be on this side of hell.
There is nothing of which we are more ashamed than of not being ourselves. And there is nothing which brings us greater joy and happiness than to think, feel, and say what is ours.
The contempt of riches in philosophers was only a hidden desire to avenge their merit upon the injustice of fortune, by despising the very goods of which fortune had deprived them; it was a secret to guard themselves against the degradation of poverty, it was a back way by which to arrive at that distinction which they could not gain by riches.
Which is more worthwhile earning: a large fortune or the esteem and gratitude of the nation? This question is prompted anew by the death of ex-Secretary of the Interior [Franklin K.] Lane. He remained in public service, doing most noble work, until his means became absolutely exhausted, and he died before having had the opportunity to reaccumulate any bank account.... He died leaving no estate whatsoever. Is what he did leave more to be desired, more to be coveted, than a fortune reaching into six or seven figures?
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