Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Joseph Joubert (French Essayist)

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

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

We know God easily, if we do not constrain ourselves to define him.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: God

It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Argument

Never cut what you can untie.
Joseph Joubert

Questions show the mind’s range, and answers its subtlety.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Questions, Questioning

You arrive at truth through poetry; I arrive at poetry through truth.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Poetry

Children need models rather than critics.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Criticism, Children

Misery is almost always the result of thinking.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Positive Attitudes, Optimism, Thinking, Happiness

To teach is to learn twice.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Teaching, Education, Teachers

We may convince others by our arguments, but we can only persuade them by their own.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Women

God has commanded time to console the unhappy.
Joseph Joubert

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

Proverbs may be said to be the abridgments of wisdom.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Proverbs

Words are like eyeglasses they blur everything that they do not make clear.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Words

All gardeners live in beautiful places, because they make them so.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Gardening

Children have more need of models than of critics.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Example, Children

We always believe God is like ourselves, the indulgent think him indulgent and the stern, terrible.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Religion, God

Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Labor, Genius

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

Ask the young. They know everything.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Youth, Time

The mind conceives with pain, but it brings forth with delight.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: The Mind, Mind

The spectacle has changed, but our eyes remain the same.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Change

He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Imagination

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Kindness, Service, Compassion

In bringing up a child, think of its old age.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Children

What a man knows only through feeling can be explained only through enthusiasm.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Enthusiasm, Passion

The ordinary true, or purely real, cannot be the object of the arts.—Illusion on a ground of truth, that is the secret of the fine arts.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Art

Necessity may render a doubtful act innocent, but it cannot make it praise worthy.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Necessity

He who has not the weakness of friendship has not the strength.
Joseph Joubert
Topics: Friends, Friendship

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