Best 236 quotes of Joseph Joubert on MyQuotes

Abuse of words is the foundation of ideology.

A false mind is false in everything, just as a cross eye always looks askant. But one may err once, nay, a hundred times, without being double-minded. There can never be mental duplicity where there is sincerity.

A few words worthy to be remembered suffice to give an idea of a great mind. There are single thoughts that contain the essence of a whole volume, single sentences that have the beauties of a large work, a simplicity so finished and so perfect that it equals in merit and in excellence a large and glorious composition.

A fluent writer always seems more talented than he is. To write well, one needs a natural felicity and an acquired difficulty.

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

All disputation makes the mind deaf; and when people are deaf, I am dumb.

All gardeners live in beautiful places because they make them so.

All good verses are like impromptus made at leisure.

All luxury corrupts either the morals or the taste.

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.

Ask the young. They know everything.

A thought is a thing as real as a cannonball.

Attention is like a narrow mouthed vessel; pour into it what you have to say cautiously, and, as it were, drop by drop.

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.

Beautiful works do not intoxicate, but they enchant.

Be charitable and indulge to everyone, but thyself.

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

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

Be saving, but not at the cost of all liberality. Have the soul of a king and the hand of a wise economist.

Chance generally favors the prudent.

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.

Children need models rather than critics.

Close your eyes and you will see.

Combien de gens se font abstraits pour para'tre profonds! La plupart des termes abstraits sont des ombres qui cachent des vides. How many people become abstract in order to appear profound! Most abstract terms are shadows that conceal a void.

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

Contempt for private wrongs was one of the features of ancient morals.

Credulity forges more miracles than trickery could invent.

Criticism even should not be without its charms. When quite devoid of all amenities, it is no longer literary.

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

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

Every modulated sound is not a song, and every voice that executes a beautiful air does not sing. Singing should enchant. But to produce this effect there must be a quality of soul and voice which is by no means common even with great singers.

Eyes raised toward heaven are always beautiful, whatever they be.

Fancy, an animal faculty, is very different from imagination, which is intellectual. The former is passive; but the latter is active and creative. Children, the weak minded, and the timid are full of fancy. Men and women of intellect, of great intellect, are alone possessed of great imagination.

Fate and necessity are unconquerable.

Fear loves the idea of danger.

Forms of government become established of themselves. They shape themselves, they are not created. We may give them strength and consistency, but we cannot call them into being. Let us rest assured that the form of government can never be a matter of choice: it is almost always a matter of necessity.

Fully to understand a grand and beautiful thought requires, perhaps, as much time as to conceive it.

Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.

Genius is the ability to see things invisible, to manipulate things intangible, to paint things that have no features

Genuinely good remarks surprise their author as well as his audience.

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.

Grace imitates modesty, as politeness imitates kindness.

God has commanded Time to console the afflicted.

God multiplies intelligence, which communicates itself, like fire, ad infinitum. Light a thousand torches at one touch, the flame remains always the same.

Good maxims are the germs of all excellence.

Good impulses are naught, unless they become good actions.

Grace is in garments, in movements, in manners; beauty in the nude, and in forms. This is true of bodies; but when we speak of feelings, beauty is in their spirituality, and grace in their moderation.

Grief - Happiness is to feel that one's soul is good; there is no other, in truth, and this kind of happiness may exist even in sorrow, so that there are griefs perfable to every joy, and such as would be preferred by all those who have felt them.

Happy is the man who can do only one thing; in doing it, he fulfills his destiny.

Haughty people seem to me to have, like the dwarfs, the stature of a child and the face of a man.