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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True greatness is approachable and genuine, while false greatness is remote and conceals its flaws.
In this quote, Jean De La Bruyere contrasts true greatness with its false counterpart. He suggests that true greatness is characterized by openness, kindness, and familiarity, allowing others to appreciate and admire it without reservations. In contrast, false greatness is marked by arrogance and a fear of being exposed, leading it to create an illusion of superiority while actually being insecure and lacking substance. Ultimately, authenticity in greatness fosters connection and admiration, whereas pretense alienates.
Themes
GreatnessAuthenticityHumilityAdmirationKindness
In practice
Example use cases
In a leadership workshop, you could use this quote to illustrate the importance of being approachable as a leader.
More from Jean De La Bruyere
All quotes →We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.
Jean De La BruyereRead
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
Jean De La BruyereRead
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
A man of the world must seem to be what he wishes to be thought.
Jean De La BruyereRead
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