“The staircase that leads to God. What does it matter if it is make-believe, if we really climb it? What difference does it make who builds it, or if it is made of marble or word, of brick, stone, or mud? The essential thing is that it be solid and that in climbing it we feel the peace that is inaccessible to those who do not climb it.”Help us translate this quoteJoseph Joubert
“We must try, as much as possible, not to mistrust anyone.”Help us translate this quoteJoseph Joubert
“It is better to be concerned with being than with nothingness. Dream therefore of what you still have rather than what you have lost.”Help us translate this quoteJoseph Joubert
“The hordes of words that fill our books proclaim our ignorance, reveal the obscurities that flood our knowledge. If we were perfectly enlightened, our moral books would contain only maxims and our books on physics and spirituality would contain only axioms and facts. Everything else is clutter and shows no more than our gropings, our efforts, and our difficulties.”Help us translate this quoteJoseph Joubert
“These thoughts form not only the foundation of my work, but of my life.”Help us translate this quoteJoseph Joubert
“In political institutions, almost everything we call an abuse was once a remedy.”Help us translate this quoteJoseph Joubert
“I know too well what I am going to say. I know it too well before writing.”Help us translate this quoteJoseph Joubert
“Someone said of an asthmatic who was being very sweet and patient in his suffering: "One would like to breathe for him."”Help us translate this quoteJoseph Joubert
“We use up in the passions the stuff that was given us for happiness.”Help us translate this quoteJoseph Joubert
“We are all old children, more or less serious, more or less filled with ourselves.”Help us translate this quoteJoseph Joubert
“What our eyes see, our imagination can no longer see. The same thing cannot be the object of both kinds of seeing.”Help us translate this quoteJoseph Joubert
“It is very difficult to be wise (through the mind); it is not difficult to be wise occasionally and by chance, but it is difficult to be wise assiduously and by choice.”Help us translate this quoteJoseph Joubert