Joseph Joubert Quotes

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“There are words agreeable to the eye (in the same way there are words agreeable to the ear). By a fortunate combination of the letters that form them or by the harmony of these letters. For each letter has its shape.”

Joseph Joubert

“In such times, if you want neither to lie nor to wound, you are reduced to being silent.”

Joseph Joubert

“In the same way crimes have increased laws, errors have increased explanations.”

Joseph Joubert

“When we find what we have been looking for, we don't have time to say it. We must die.”

Joseph Joubert

“Courage (in a soldier) is maintained by a certain anger; anger is a little blind and likes to strike out. And from this follows a thousand abuses, a thousand evils and misfortunes that are impossible to predict in an army during war.”

Joseph Joubert

“Those who never back down love themselves more than they love the truth.”

Joseph Joubert

“Fortunately, when he lacks reason he also lacks words.”

Joseph Joubert

“Anger, which purges resentment.”

Joseph Joubert

“They want to shake up the world, not make it wiser.”

Joseph Joubert

“Are you listening to the ones who keep quiet?”

Joseph Joubert

“Having found nothing worth more than emptiness, he leaves space vacant.”

Joseph Joubert

“Thoughts that are light, clear, distinct, finished; and words that resemble their thoughts. Words that often retain their meaning even when they are detached from others and that please when isolated as sounds.”

Joseph Joubert

“A thought is a thing as real as a cannonball.”

Joseph Joubert

“A work is perfectly finished only when nothing can be added to it and nothing taken away.”

Joseph Joubert

“Think nothing outside their paper.”

Joseph Joubert

“I have too much brain for my head. It cannot play comfortably in its box.”

Joseph Joubert

“In every kind of debauch there enters much coldness of soul. It is a conscious and voluntary abuse of pleasure.”

Joseph Joubert

“The child speaks words with his memory long before he speaks them with his tongue.”

Joseph Joubert

“It is impossible for me to say something foolish without being aware of it.”

Joseph Joubert

“Conversation. — Because they have many of those ideas that, to be shown, have need of eyes, gestures, voice, a whole multitude of signs that the written word does not accompany. One sees the soul in operation.”

Joseph Joubert

“The great inconvenience of new books is that they prevent us from reading the old ones.”

Joseph Joubert

“Because they know all the words, they think they know all the truths.”

Joseph Joubert

“Undoubtedly, philosophy caused the Revolution. But what caused philosophy? Theological arrogance.”

Joseph Joubert

“To speak with his imagination, but to think with his reason.”

Joseph Joubert

“A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.”

Joseph Joubert

“Stars more beautiful to the eyes than the telescope that robs them of their illusions.”

Joseph Joubert

“To judge things of taste, we must give ourselves time to taste them.”

Joseph Joubert

“Abuse of words, foundation of ideology.”

Joseph Joubert

“Without fixed ideas, no fixed feelings. (Whoever has no constant opinions has no constant emotions.)”

Joseph Joubert

“Objects must be described only in order to describe the feelings they envoke in us.”

Joseph Joubert

“The imagination has made more discoveries than the eye.”

Joseph Joubert

“Half myself mocks the other half.”

Joseph Joubert

“Everything is game except what makes the soul better or worse.”

Joseph Joubert

“If I weigh myself down, everything is lost.”

Joseph Joubert

“One always adds a little of one's soul to what one thinks.”

Joseph Joubert

“When a truth is better conceived through abstraction, use the abstraction; if not, don't.”

Joseph Joubert

“A stupid lie is one that can never make itself believed.”

Joseph Joubert

“From the center we should perceive the circle.”

Joseph Joubert

“Reason does not reason. It goes straight to the fact or the consequence.”

Joseph Joubert

“All ways of expressing ourselves are good if they make us understood. Thus, if the clarity of our thoughts comes through better in a play of words, then the wordplay is good.”

Joseph Joubert

“One can advance a long time in life without aging.”

Joseph Joubert

“To descend into ourselves, we must first lift ourselves up.”

Joseph Joubert

“For in spite of ourselves we respect those whom we see respected.”

Joseph Joubert

“To seek wisdom rather than truth. It is more within our grasp.”

Joseph Joubert

“Neither in the arts, nor in logic, nor in life should an idea by in any way treated as a thing.”

Joseph Joubert

“Divorce. Its existence and use should be determined only by the interests of the children.”

Joseph Joubert

“Perhaps (and probably) it would be true to say that we cannot conceive of anything except what we can see in our minds.”

Joseph Joubert

“It is easy to understand God as long as you don't try to explain him.”

Joseph Joubert

“Memory. — It is a mirror, that retains, and retains forever. Nothing is lost in it, nothing is erased. But it can be tarnished. And then one sees nothing in it.”

Joseph Joubert