Joseph Joubert: Use

“Let us look for our light in our feelings. There is a warmth in them that contains many clarities.”

“Those who have judgment use it as much as in judging stones as in judging men.”

“Let us look to beautiful poetry for the material of a beautiful prose.”

“Like those dreams that have pleased us. They escape us and we vainly try to hold onto them.”

“In this painting of our life given to us by our memories, everything is moving and depends on our point of view.”

“We are worth more when someone looks at us. And, because of this, an eye is always watching us.”

“Let us remember that everything is double.”

“Of those who want us to be wrong and those who want us to be right.”

“Those thoughts that come to us suddenly and that are not yet ours.”

“We use up in the passions the stuff that was given us for happiness.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“Illusions comes from heaven and mistakes come from us.”

“What good is modesty? — It makes us seem more beautiful when we are beautiful, and less ugly when we are ugly.”

“Anger makes us adroit.”