Top 294 Quotes & Sayings by Joseph Joubert - Page 4

The art of saying well what one thinks is different from the faculty of thinking. The latter may be very deep and lofty and far- reaching, while the former is altogether wanting.

Today there are no more irreconcilable enmities, because there are no more disinterested emotions: that's a good thing born from a bad thing.

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.

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

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.

I would fain coin wisdom,—mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted. Would that I could denounce and banish from the language of men—as base money—the words by which they cheat and are cheated!

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

Science confounds everything; it gives to the flowers an animal appetite, and takes away from even the plants their chastity.

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.

How many books there are whose reputation is made that would not obtain it were it now to make?

I quit Paris unwillingly, because I must part from my friends; and I quit the country unwillingly, because I must part from myself.

Illusion and wisdom combined are the charm of life and art.

Order is to arrangement what the soul is to the body, and what mind is to matter.

It may be said that it is with our thoughts as with our flowers. Those whose expression is simple carry their seed with them; those that are double by their richness and pomp charm the mind, but produce nothing.

Tenderness is the rest of passion.

What can you possibly add to a mind that's full, especially one that's full of itself.

Our ideals, like pictures, are made from lights and shadows.

Proverbs may be said to be the abridgment of wisdom.

It is always our inabilities that vex us.

To be an agreeable guest one need only enjoy oneself.

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

Tormented by the cursed ambition always to put a whole book in a page, a whole page in a sentence, and this sentence in a word. I am speaking of myself.

If authorities were well organized, there would not be an Unknown Warrior.

Remorse is the punishment of crime; repentance, its expiation. The former appertains to a tormented conscience; the latter to a soul changed for the better.

In really good acting we should be able to believe that what we hear and see is of our own imagining; it should seem to be to us as a charming dream.

Words become luminous when the poet's finger has passed over them its phosphorescence.

In clothes clean and fresh there is a kind of youth with which age should surround itself.

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.

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

Professional critics are incapable of distinguishing and appreciating either diamonds in the rough or gold in bars. They are traders, and in literature know only the coins that are current. Their critical lab has scales and weights, but neither crucible or touchstone.

When a nation gives birth to a man who is able to produce a great thought, another is born who is able to understand and admire it.

The talkative man speaks from his mouth, the eloquent man speaks from his heart.

In the interchange of thought use no coin but gold and silver.

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

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.

Genuine bon mots surprise those from whose lips they fall, no less than they do those who listen to them.

Young authors give their brains much exercise and little food.

Only just the right quantum of wit should be put into a book; in conversation a little excess is allowable.

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

There are single thoughts that contain the essence of a whole volume, single sentences that have the beauties of a large work.

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

Grace imitates modesty, as politeness imitates kindness.

Virtue is the health of the soul. It gives a flavor to the smallest leaves of life.

He who has not the weakness of friendship has not the strength.

Speech is but the incorporation of thought.

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

A temperate style is alone classical.

Xenophon wrote with a swan's quill, Plato with a pen of gold, and Thucydides with a brazen stylus.

The soul paints itself in our machines.

The passions should be purged; all may become innocent if they are well directed and moderated. Even hatred maybe a commendable feeling when it is caused by a lively love of good. Whatever makes the passions pure, makes them stronger, more durable, and more enjoyable.

We disjoint the mind like the body.

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

I do not call reason that brutal reason which crushes with its weight what is holy and sacred, that malignant reason which delights in the errors it succeeds in discovering, that unfeeling and scornful reason which insults credulity.

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

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

There are some men who are witty when they are in a bad humor, and others only when they are sad.

We may convince others by our arguements, but we can only persuade them by their own

I love prudence very little, if it is not moral.

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.

Man is born with the faculty of speech. Who gives it to him? He who gives the bird its song.