When what you read elevates your mind and fills you with noble aspirations, look for no other rule by which to judge a book; it is good, and is the work of a master-hand.
Jean De La BruyereRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Patience in pursuit leads to a more satisfying success than impatience.
This quote emphasizes the importance of patience when striving for your desires. It suggests that those who can wait for what they truly want are less likely to feel disheartened by potential setbacks, whereas those who pursue their goals too aggressively may find that their eventual success does not compensate for the stress and effort they invested in the process.
Themes
PatienceSuccessDesireEffortGrief
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about achieving goals.
More from Jean De La Bruyere
All quotes →We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.
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We seldom repent of speaking little, very often of speaking too much: a vulgar and trite maxim, which all the world knows and, but which all the world does not practice
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False greatness is unsociable and remote: conscious of its own frailty, it hides, or at least averts its face, and reveals itself only enough to create an illusion and not be recognized as the meanness that it really is. True greatness is free, kind, familiar and popular; it lets itself be touched and handled, it loses nothing by being seen at close quarters; the better one knows it, the more one admires it.
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From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.
Jean De La BruyereRead
Every man is valued in this world as he shows by his conduct that he wishes to be valued.
Jean De La BruyereRead
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