A Quote by Jean de la Bruyere

The art of conversation consists far less in displaying much wit oneself than in helping others to be witty: the man who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own wit is very well pleased with you.

Jean de la Bruyere

Quote Topics

Art Art Of Conversation Company Consists Conversation Far He Man Helping Helping Others Himself His Leaves Less Man Much Oneself Others Own Pleased Than Very Well Wit Witty Your

Quote Author

Jean de la Bruyere
French - Philosopher
1645 - 1696

The great gift of conversation lies less in displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others. He who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own cleverness is perfectly well pleased with you.

Jean de la Bruyere

Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. Sometimes it does. But the danger is, that while a man grows better pleased with himself, he may be growing less pleasing to others. Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has presented.

James Boswell

The great charm of conversation consists less in the display of one's own wit and intelligence than in the power to draw forth the resources of others.

Jean de la Bruyere

By wit we search divine aspect above, By wit we learn what secrets science yields, By wit we speak, by wit the mind is rul'd, By wit we govern all our actions; Wit is the loadstar of each human thought, Wit is the tool by which all things are wrought.

Robert Greene

A Wise man knows that much of what he says and does is commonplace and trivial. His thoughts are not all solemn and sacred in his own eyes. He is able to laugh at himself and is not offended when others make him a subject whereon to exercise their wit.

John Lancaster Spalding

A wise man will live as much within his wit as his income.... Bear this truth always in your mind, that you may be admired for your wit, if you have any; but that nothing but good sense and good qualities can make you be loved.

Lord Chesterfield

Your wit makes others witty.

Catherine the Great

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people, and the wife is pleased that she is dressed.

Samuel Johnson

Who can prove Wit to be witty when with deeper ground Dulness intuitive declares wit dull?

George Eliot

The secret of success in society is a certain heartiness and sympathy. A man who is not happy in company, cannot find any word in his memory that will fit the occasion; all his information is a little impertinent. A man who is happy there, finds in every turn of the conversation occasions for the introduction of what he has to say. The favorites of society are able men, and of more spirit than wit, who have no uncomfortable egotism, but who exactly fill the hour and the company, contended and contenting.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nobody thanks a witty man for politeness when he puts himself on a par with a society in which it would not be polite to show one's wit.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The soul's true greatness is in loving God and in humbling oneself in His presence, completely forgetting oneself and believing oneself to be nothing; because the Lord is great, but He is well-pleased only with the humble; He always opposes the proud.

Mary Faustina Kowalska

Less judgment than wit is more sail than ballast. Yet it must be confessed that wit given an edge to sense, and recommends it extremely.

William Penn

Wit in women is a jewel, which, unlike all others, borrows lustre from its setting, rather than bestows it; since nothing is so easy as to fancy a very beautiful woman extremely witty.

Charles Caleb Colton

The best thing next to wit is a consciousness that it is not in us; without wit, a man might then know how to behave himself, so as not to appear to be a fool or a coxcomb.

Jean de la Bruyere

A small degree of wit, accompanied by good sense, is less tiresome in the long run than a great amount of wit without it.