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
Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches; their burden would be too heavy for us; we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, quiet, honor and conscience, to obtain them: It is to pay so dear from them that the bargain is a loss.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We shouldn't envy the wealth of others because it often comes at a significant personal cost.
This quote reflects on the often unseen sacrifices that accompany great wealth. It suggests that while some may appear prosperous with their riches, they may have traded away their health, peace of mind, integrity, and moral values to achieve that wealth, making it an unwise pursuit for those who value these aspects of life more highly.
Themes
WealthSacrificeHealthHonorEnvy
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the true cost of success during a business seminar.
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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.
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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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