Today there are no more irreconcilable enmities, because there are no more disinterested emotions: that’s a good thing born from a bad thing.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Emotions
Ignorance, which in behavior mitigates a fault, is, in literature, a capital offence.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Ignorance
To see the world is to judge the judges.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Travel
Politeness is the flower of humanity.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Manners
Chastity enables the soul to breathe a pure air in the foulest places.—Continence makes her strong, no matter in what condition the body may be.—Her sway over the senses makes her queenly: her light and peace render her beautiful.
—Joseph Joubert
We find little in a book but what we put there. But in great books, the mind finds room to put many things.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Books
There are some heads that have no windows, and the day can never strike from above; nothing enters from heavenward.
—Joseph Joubert
The passions should be purged; all may become innocent if they are well directed and moderated. Even hatred may be a commendable feeling when it is caused by a lively love of good. Whatever makes the passions purer makes them stronger, more durable, and mere enjoyable.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Passion
Happy is the man who can do only one thing; in doing it, he fulfills his destiny.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Happiness, Gratitude, Blessings, Appreciation
There is always some frivolity in excellent minds; they have wings to rise, but also stray.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Life, Humor
He who exhibits no faults is a fool or a hypocrite whom we should distrust.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Faults
Chance generally favors the prudent.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Fate, Chance
Never cut what you can untie.
—Joseph Joubert
They are like the clue in the labyrinth, or the compass in the night.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Proverbial Wisdom, Proverbs
Children need models rather than critics.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Children, Criticism
Our worries always come from our weaknesses.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Weakness
Fully to understand a grand and beautiful thought requires, perhaps, as much time as to conceive it.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Thought
Politeness smoothes wrinkles.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Politeness
The passions of the young are vices in the old.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Youth
In bringing up a child, think of its old age.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Children
Space is the stature of God.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Space
Logic works; metaphysics contemplates.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Logic
Success serves men as a pedestal; it makes them look larger, if reflection does not measure them.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Success
The mind conceives with pain, but it brings forth with delight.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Mind, The Mind
There was a time when the world acted on books; now books act on the world.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Books, Reading
The spectacle has changed, but our eyes remain the same.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Change
He who has not the weakness of friendship has not the strength.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Friends, Friendship
Think of the ills from which you are exempt.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Blessings
What a man knows only through feeling can be explained only through enthusiasm.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Enthusiasm, Passion
History needs distance, perspective. Facts and events which are too well attested cease, in some sort, to be malleable.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: History
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle French Man of Letters
- Michel de Montaigne French Essayist
- Andre Gide French Novelist
- Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues French Moralist
- Albert Camus Algerian-born French Philosopher
- Marcel Proust French Novelist
- Ken Kesey American Novelist
- Jorge Luis Borges Argentine Writer
- Giacomo Leopardi Italian Poet
- Miguel de Unamuno Spanish Philosopher, Writer
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