"Characters, or Manners of the Present Age" by Jean de La Bruyère is a collection of epigrams, reflections and portraits. In this work, La Bruyère tried to depict the social mores of his century. In the preface to his “Characters,” the author admitted that the purpose of the book is to draw attention to the shortcomings of society, “made from life,” with the aim of correcting them. The language of his work is so realistic in depicting details and character traits that his contemporaries did not believe in the abstractness of his characteristics and tried to guess living people in them. Undoubtedly, the author partly “copied” his portraits from real people, but many of La Bruyère’s images also have a collective meaning that has not lost its relevance to this day.