Joseph Joubert Quotes

Without the spiritual world the material world is a disheartening enigma.

Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

Of what delights are we deprived by our excesses!

Space is to place as eternity is to time.

Children must be rendered reasonable, but not reasoners. The first thing to teach them is that it is reasonable for them to obey, and unreasonable for them to dispute.

Let us have justice, and then we shall have enough liberty!

We find little in a book but what we put there. But in great books, the mind finds room to put many things.

Xenophon wrote with a swan's quill, Plato with a pen of gold, and Thucydides with a brazen stylus.

The idea of the nest in the bird's mind, where does it come from?

Of the two, I prefer those who render vice lovable to those who degrade virtue.

There is in the soul a taste for the good, just as there is in the body an appetite for enjoyment.

Drawing is speaking to the eye; talking is painting to the ear.

Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love the truth.

The early and the latter part of human life are the best, or, at least, the most worthy of respect; the one as the age of innocence, the other of reason.

We should always keep a corner of our heads open and free, that we may make room for the opinions of our friends. Let us have heart and head hospitality.

Avoid singularity. There may often be less vanity in following the new modes than in adhering to the old ones. It is true that the foolish invent them, but the wise may conform to, instead of contradicting, them.

The lively phraseology of Montesquieu was the result of long meditation. His words, as light as wings, bear on them grave reflections.

Young authors give their brains much exercise and little food.

Religion is the only metaphysic that the multitude can understand and adopt.

The true character of epistolary style is playfulness and urbanity.

Minds which never rest are subject to many digressions.

Virtue is the health of the soul.

Justice is the truth in action.

Good impulses are naught, unless they become good actions.

Education should be gentle and stern, not cold and lax.

What can you possibly add to a mind that's full, especially one that's full of itself.

You have to be like the pebble in the stream, keeping the grain and rolling along without being dissolved or dissolving anything else.

Strength is natural, but grace is the growth of habit. This charming quality requires practice if it is to become lasting.

Imitate time; it destroys everything slowly; it undermines, it wears away, it detaches, it does not wrench.

Before you use a fancy word, make room for it.

How many people become abstract as a way of appearing profound.

Taste has never been corrupted by simplicity.

You want to talk to someone; first open your ears.

Grace imitates modesty, as politeness imitates kindness.

The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.

We may convince others by our arguements, but we can only persuade them by their own

A man who shows no defect is a fool or a hypocrite, whom we should mistrust. There are defects so bound to fine qualities that they announce them,--defects which it is well not to correct.

What a man knows only through feeling can be explained only through enthusiasm.

The Bible remained for me a book of books, still divine - but divine in the sense that all great books are divine which teach men how to live righteously.

If fortune wishes to make a man estimable, she gives him virtues; if she wishes to make him esteemed, she gives him success.

The evening of a well spent youth brings it's lamps with it.

Genuine bon mots surprise those from whose lips they fall, no less than they do those who listen to them.

Those readiest to criticise are often least able to appreciate.

We use up in the passions the stuff that was given us for happiness.

Think of the ills from which you are exempt.

There are those to whom one must advise madness.

Thoughts there are, that need no embodying, no form, no expression. It is enough to hint at them vaguely; a word, and they are heard and seen.

Think that day lost whose descending sun, views from thy hand no noble action done.