Joseph Joubert Quotes

Old age deprives the intelligent man only of qualities useless to wisdom.

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.

Those readiest to criticise are often least able to appreciate.

What can one possibly introduce into a mind that is already full, and full of itself?

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.

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

I resemble the poplar,--that tree which, even when old, still looks young.

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

A maxim is the exact and noble expression of an important and indisputable truth. Good maxims are the germs of all excellence; when firmly fixed on the memory, they nourish the will.

Living requires but little life; doing requires much.

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

The beautiful invariably possesses a visible and a hidden beauty; and it is certain that no style is so beautiful as that which presents to the attentive reader a half-hidden meaning.

Liquid, flowing words are the choicest and the best, if language is regarded as music. But when it is considered as a picture, then there are rough words which are very telling, they make their mark.

When the painter wishes to represent an event, he cannot place before us too great a number of personages; but he cannot employ too few when he wishes to portray an emotion.

To be capable of respect is almost as rare as to be worthy of it.

Pleasures are always children, pains always have wrinkles.

There are some heads which have no windows, and the day can never strike from above; nothing enters from heavenard.

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

He who cannot see the beautiful side is a bad painter, a bad friend, a bad lover; he cannot lift his mind and his heart so high as goodness.

Agriculture engenders good sense, and good sense of an excellent kind.

Ask the young. They know everything.

In these times gain is not only a matter of greed, but of ambition.

Common sense suits itself to the ways of the world. Wisdom tries to confirm to the ways of heaven.

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

Old age takes from the man of intellect no qualities save those that are useless to wisdom.

Abuse of words is the foundation of ideology.

Of what delights are we deprived by our excesses!

Men must be either the slaves of duty, or the slaves of force.

We should do good whenever we can and do kindness at all times, for at all times we can.

Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure. Emotion is easily transferred from the writer to the reader.

Genuine witticisms surprise those who say them as much as those who listen to them; they arise in us in spite of us, or, at least, without our participation,--like everything inspired.

You arrive at truth through poetry; I arrive at poetry through truth.

Without duty, life is sort of boneless; it cannot hold itself together.

The joy which is caused by truth and noble thoughts shows itself in the words by which they are expressed.

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

It is easier to be mistaken about the true than the beautiful.

The simple-hearted and sincere never do more than half deceive themselves.

The mind conceives with pain, but it brings forth with delight.

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

Fear loves the idea of danger.

The supreme sway of chastity over the senses makes her queenly.

In really good acting we should be able to believe that what we hear and see is of our own imagining; it should seem to be to us as a charming dream.

Thus, if the clarity of our thoughts comes through better in a play of words, then the wordplay is good. One must know how to enter the ideas of others and how to leave them.

Only just the right quantum of wit should be put into a book; in conversation a little excess is allowable.

Order is to arrangement what the soul is to the body, and what mind is to matter.

If authorities were well organized, there would not be an Unknown Warrior.

It would be next to impossible to discover a handsome woman who was not also a vain woman.

I quit Paris unwillingly, because I must part from my friends; and I quit the country unwillingly, because I must part from myself.

He who has not the weakness of friendship has not the strength.

A work is perfectly finished only when nothing can be added to it and nothing taken away.