Jean de la Bruyere Quotes

Better is the sinner who hath thoughts about God, than the saint who hath only the show of sanctity.

We cannot hope to die peacefully if our lives have been full of violence, or if our minds have mostly been agitated by emotions like anger, attachment, or fear. So if we wish to die well, we must learn how to live well: Hoping for a peaceful death, we must cultivate peace in our mind, and in our way of life.

Godliness is more easily feigned in words than in actions

Dreams dawn and fly: friends smile and die, Like spring flowers. Our vaunted life is one long funeral. Men dig graves, with bitter tears, For their dead hopes; and all, Mazed with doubts, and sick with fears, Count the hours.

Piety is not an end, but a means: a means of attaining the highest culture by the purest tranquility of soul. Hence it may be observed that those who set up piety as an end and object are mostly hypocrites.

Piety is the tinfoil of pretense.

Lay her i' the earth: And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering angel shall my sister be, When thou liest howling. HAMLET. What, the fair Ophelia! QUEEN GERTRUDE. Sweets to the sweet: farewell!

No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it, by vigorously willing to have it ... Peace is a consciousness of springs too deep for earthly droughts to dry up. Peace is the gift not of volitional struggle but of spiritual hospitality.

A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.

In the final analysis, the hope of every person is simply peace of mind.

In quietness the soul expands.

If I really want inner peace in my life, then I must not busy myself with what other people do and say.

He that upon a true principle lives, without any disquiet of thought, may be said to be happy.

For piety lies not in being often seen turning a veiled head to stones, nor in approaching every altar, nor in lying prostratebefore the temples of the gods, nor in sprinkling altars with the blood of beastsbut rather in being able to look upon all things with a mind at peace.

If you want peace, stop fighting. If you want peace of mind, stop fighting with your thoughts.

Anxiety is the poison of human life; the parent of many sins and of more miseries. In a world where everything is doubtful, and where we may be disappointed, and be blessed in disappointment, why this restless stir and commotion of mind? Can it alter the cause, or unravel the mystery of human events?

Without trust, there can be no tranquil resting of the mind.

We are oft to blame in this, - 'tis too much proved, - that with devotion's visage, and pios action we do sugar o'er the devil himself.

Complete freedom from stress is death

Meditation gives us peace of mind without a tranquilizer. And unlike a tranquilizer, the peace of mind that we get from meditation does not fade away. It lasts for good in some corner of the inmost recesses of our aspiring heart.

Do not let trifles disturb your tranquility of mind. . . . Life is too precious to be sacrificed for the nonessential and transient. . . . Ignore the inconsequential!

When we love God because we feel we should love Him, instead of genuinely loving out of our true selves, we have forgotten who God really is.

Rushing around, hoping to find peace of mind anywhere other than within yourself, is like looking for your heart in someone else's body!

All I want is to have my peace of mind...

Thoughts, and words that spring from them, bend the individual's reality. To speak of death is to invite it. To think of sorrow is to produce it.