Joseph Joubert famous quotes

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Love #Kindness #Women

He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Inspirational #Education #Learning

Children need models rather than critics.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Positive #Education #Children

The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Inspirational #Victory #Intelligence

Love and fear. Everything the father of a family says must inspire one or the other.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Fathers Day #Dad #Inspire

Never cut what you can untie.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Life #Cutting #Interesting

Imagination is the eye of the soul.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Inspirational #Life #Eye

What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Anticipation #Sunlight

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Poetry #Poetic

All are born to observe order, but few are born to establish it.
-- Joseph Joubert

#War #Order #Born

Misery is almost always the result of thinking.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Love #Happiness #Happy

Space is to place as eternity is to time.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Time #Space #Eternity

We are all of us more or less echoes, repeating involuntarily the virtues, the defects, the movements, and the characters of those among whom we live.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Character #Humility #Echoes

It is not my words that I polish, but my ideas. 102
-- Joseph Joubert

#Ideas #Polish

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

#Writing #Use #Fancy

Life is a country that the old have seen, and lived in. Those who have to travel through it can only learn from them.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Country #Travel #Life Is

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

#Respect #Worthy #Capable

Innocence is always unsuspicious.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Innocence

Without the spiritual world the material world is a disheartening enigma.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Spiritual #Soul #World

Only choose in marriage a man whom you would choose as a friend if he were a woman.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Marriage #Wedding Anniversary #Men

To teach is to learn twice.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Inspirational #Life #Education

Politeness is the flower of humanity.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Meaningful #Flower #Humanity

Pleasures are always children, pains always have wrinkles.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Children #Pain #Wrinkles

Superstition is the only religion of which base souls are capable of.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Soul #Religion #Superstitions

The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Anger #Hiking #Long

Logic works, metaphysics contemplates.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Math #Logic #Metaphysics

The paper is patient, but the reader is not.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Paper #Patient #Reader

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

#Powerful #Writing #Never Giving Up

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

#Beauty #Beautiful #Gardener

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

#Together #Life Is #Togetherness

Drawing is speaking to the eye; talking is painting to the ear.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Eye #Talking #Drawing

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

#Genius #Invisible #Paint

Without duty, life is soft and boneless.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Inspirational #Life Is #Duty

Agriculture engenders good sense, and good sense of an excellent kind.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Agriculture #Kind #Excellent

Music has seven letters, writing has twenty-six notes
-- Joseph Joubert

#Writing #Twenties #Letters

Poetry is to be found nowhere unless we carry it within us.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Found #Poetry Is

The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Book #Reading #Worst

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.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Feelings #Grace #Body

Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Inspirational #Work #Commitment

Words, like glass, obscure when they do not aid vision.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Writing #Glasses #Vision

Ask the young. They know everything.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Time #Young

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.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Children #Animal #Men

Good maxims are the germs of all excellence.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Excellence #Germs #Maxims

Lenity is a part of justice; but she must not speak too loud for fear of waking justice.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Justice #Waking #Speak

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

#Joy #Noble #Shows

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

#Fire #Light #Flames

History needs distance, perspective. Facts and events which are too well attested cease, in some sort, to be malleable.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Distance #History #Perspective

Of what delights are we deprived by our excesses!
-- Joseph Joubert

#Excess #Delight

Strength is natural, but grace is the growth of habit. This charming quality requires practice if it is to become lasting.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Practice #Grace #Growth

Grace imitates modesty, as politeness imitates kindness.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Kindness #Grace #Modesty

When you give, give with joy and smiling.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Giving #Joy

Fear loves the idea of danger.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Fear #Ideas #Fear Of Love

To be an agreeable guest one need only enjoy oneself.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Needs #Guests #Enjoy

Maxims are to the intellect what laws are to actions; they do not enlighten, but they guide and direct, and, although themselves blind, are protective.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Law #Action #Enlightening

Let us have justice, and then we shall have enough liberty!
-- Joseph Joubert

#Freedom #Justice #Liberty

Living requires but little life; doing requires much.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Littles #Action

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

#Ambition #Greed #Matter

Which is more misshapen,--religion without virtue, or virtue without religion?
-- Joseph Joubert

#Religion #Virtue

Religion must be loved as a kind of country and nursing-mother. It was religion that nourished our virtues, that showed us heaven, that taught us to walk in the path of duty.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Mother #Country #Nursing

Religion is the only metaphysic that the multitude can understand and adopt.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Religion #Multitudes

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.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Liquid #Language #Mark

Religion is neither a theology nor a theosophy; it is more than that, it is a discipline, a law, a yoke, an indissoluble engagement.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Law #Discipline #Religion

Religion is fire which example keeps alive, and which goes out if not communicated.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Fire #Religion #Example

The last word should be the last word. It is like a finishing touch given to color; there is nothing more to add. But what precaution is needed in order not to put the last word first.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Order #Color #Finishing

Sexes. One has the look of a wound, the other of something skinned.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Sex #Women #Wind

A thought is a thing as real as a cannonball.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Real #Cannonballs

Moderation consists in being moved as angels are moved.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Angel #Moderation #Moved

Mediocrity is excellent to the eyes of mediocre people.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Eye #People #Mediocrity

There is graciousness and a kind of urbanity in beginning with men by esteem and confidence. It proves, at least, that we have long lived in good company with others and with our selves.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Self Esteem #Men #Long

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

#Men #Slave #Force

Old age was naturally more honored in times when people could not know much more than what they had seen.
-- Joseph Joubert

#People #Age #Honored

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

#Men #Age #Quality

There is an admiration which is the daughter of knowledge.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Daughter #Admiration

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.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Grief #Joy #Soul

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

#Thinking #Views #Hands

Think of the ills from which you are exempt.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Thinking

Education should be gentle and stern, not cold and lax.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Education #Lax #Cold

Nothing which does not transport is poetry. The lyre is a winged instrument.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Doe #Instruments #Transport

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.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Play #Ideas #Clarity

Let us be men with men, and always children before God; for in His eyes we are but children. Old age itself, in presence of eternity, is but the first moment of a morning.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Morning #Children #Eye

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

#Beauty #Beautiful #Eye

Success serves men as a pedestal. It makes them seem greater when not measured by reflection.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Success #Reflection #Men

The evening of life brings with it its lamps.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Age #Lamps #Evening

Antiquity! I like its ruins better than its reconstructions.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Ruins #Reconstruction

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.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Essence #Ideas #Giving

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

#Window #Strikes

When credulity comes from the heart it does no harm to the intellect.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Heart #Doe #Harm

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

#People #Dumb #Mind

In bringing up a child, think of its old age.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Children #Thinking #Age

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.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Children #Firsts #Disputes

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

#Chastity

The soul that is the abode of chastity acquires an energy which enables her to surmount with ease the obstacles that lie along the path of duty.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Lying #Soul #Energy

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

#Kindness #Should #Benevolence

Young authors give their brains much exercise and little food.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Exercise #Giving #Brain

Strength is not energy; some authors have more muscles than talent.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Energy #Talent #Muscles

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.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Art #Numbers #Wish

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

#Art #Real #Secret

In the commerce of language use only coin of gold and silver.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Gold #Use #Coins

Beautiful works do not intoxicate, but they enchant.
-- Joseph Joubert

#Beauty #Beautiful

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

#Vanity #Would Be #Handsome