Jean de La Bruyère

1645–1696 · French philosopher & moralist, author of Les Caractères

Jean de La Bruyère was a French philosopher and moralist noted for his satire, born 16 August 1645 and dead on 11 May 1696. His one enduring book, Les Caractères, first appeared in 1688 and kept growing — the fourth edition of 1689 added especially heavily — as he went on inserting fresh portraits of his contemporaries. The result is less a treatise than a mosaic of short character sketches and one-line judgements on the manners of his age, of which this sentence is one.

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“There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste”

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