Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) was a French man of letters who wrote on philosophical, moral, and literary topics. He is remembered today largely for his Pensées (Thoughts,) which were published posthumously.
Born in Montignac, Perigord, Joubert studied and taught at the college of Toulouse. He then went to Paris, where he lived through the French Revolution. In 1809, he was nominated inspector-general for the lycées (universities) under Napoleon Bonaparte.
Throughout his life, Joubert wrote in notebooks, on scraps of paper, which he then stored, mostly unclassified, in a case. After his death, his friend François-René de Châteaubriand edited a small volume from Joubert’s papers.
Joubert found fame for the concise, accurate—and, at times, witty—quality of writing in his Recueil des pensées de M. Joubert (1838, also Pensées or ‘Thoughts.’) These are in the best French tradition of François de La Rochefoucauld, Blaise Pascal, and Jean de La Bruyèreand Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Joseph Joubert
There was a time when the world acted on books; now books act on the world.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Reading, Books
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.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Opinion
It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Argument
Imagination is the eye of the soul.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Imagination
You arrive at truth through poetry; I arrive at poetry through truth.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Poetry
All gardeners live in beautiful places, because they make them so.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Gardening
In bringing up a child, think of its old age.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Children
Order is to arrangement what the soul is to the body, and what mind is to matter.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Order
We may convince others by our arguments, but we can only persuade them by their own.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Women
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.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Fashion
Ornaments were invented by modesty.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Humility, Modesty
In literature, today, there are plenty of good masons but few good architects.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Literature
Success serves men as a pedestal; it makes them look larger, if reflection does not measure them.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Success
Eyes raised toward heaven are always beautiful, whatever they may be.
—Joseph Joubert
Tenderness is the rest of passion.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Strength
Never cut what you can untie.
—Joseph Joubert
Superstition is the only religion of which base souls are capable.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Superstition
The true character of epistolary style is playfulness and urbanity.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Letters
History needs distance, perspective. Facts and events which are too well attested cease, in some sort, to be malleable.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: History
When a nation gives birth to a man who is able to produce a great thought, another is born who is able to understand and admire it.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Appreciation, Thought
Without duty, life is soft and boneless.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Happiness, Time Management, Value of Time
Chance usually favors the prudent man.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Chance, Luck, Fortune
All luxury corrupts either the morals or the taste.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Luxury
I would fain coin wisdom,—mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted.
—Joseph Joubert
Chance generally favors the prudent.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Fate, Chance
Illusion and wisdom combined are the charm of life and art.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Illusion
The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Reading, Books, Literature
A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Service, Compassion, Kindness
Haughty people seem to me to have, like the dwarfs, the statures of a child and the face of a man.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Pride
Children need models rather than critics.
—Joseph Joubert
Topics: Children, Criticism
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