Joseph Joubert Quotes

109 Sourced Quotes

It's better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.

Joseph Joubert
The mind conceives with pain, but it brings forth with delight.

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

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

Joseph Joubert
Logic is to grammar what the sense of words is to their sound.

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

Joseph Joubert
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
To the liberal ideas of the age must be opposed the moral ideas of all ages.

Joseph Joubert
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.

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

Joseph Joubert
Be saving, but not at the cost of all liberality. Have the soul of a king and the hand of a wise economist.

Joseph Joubert
A false mind is false in everything, just as a cross eye always looks askant. But one may err once, nay, a hundred times, without being double-minded. There can never be mental duplicity where there is sincerity.

Joseph Joubert
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.

Joseph Joubert
Truth takes the stamp of the souls it enters. It is rigorous and rough in arid souls, but tempers and softens itself in loving natures.

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

Joseph Joubert
Some superior minds are unrecognized because there is no standard by which to weigh them.

Joseph Joubert
I never like evergreen trees. There is something black in their green and cold in their shade, something dry, pointed and prickly in their leaves. As besides, they lose nothing and have nothing to fear, they seem to me without feeling, and therefore interest me little.

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

Joseph Joubert
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
Necessity may render a doubtful act innocent, but it cannot make it praiseworthy

Joseph Joubert
He who cannot see the beautiful side is a bad painter, a bad friend, a bad lover; he cannot lift his mind and his heart so high as goodness.

Joseph Joubert
There is something divine about the ideas of space and eternity which is wanting in those of pure duration and simple extension.

Joseph Joubert
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.

Joseph Joubert
The dregs may stir themselves as they please; they fall back to the bottom by their own coarseness.

Joseph Joubert
The simple-hearted and sincere never do more than half deceive themselves.

Joseph Joubert
The beautiful invariably possesses a visible and a hidden beauty; and it is certain that no style is so beautiful as that which presents to the attentive reader a half-hidden meaning.

Joseph Joubert
If you are poor, distinguish yourself by your virtues; if rich, by your good deeds.

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

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

Joseph Joubert
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