Joseph Joubert

Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.

— Joseph Joubert

The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.

— Joseph Joubert

It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle it without debate.

— Joseph Joubert

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

— Joseph Joubert

There was a time when the world acted on books; now books act on the world.

— Joseph Joubert

The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.

— Joseph Joubert

Be charitable and indulge to everyone, but thyself.

— Joseph Joubert

Children need models rather than critics.

— Joseph Joubert

Who ever has no fixed opinions has no constant feelings.

— Joseph Joubert

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.

— Joseph Joubert

Without duty, life is sort of boneless; it cannot hold itself together.

— Joseph Joubert

We do not do well except when we know where the best is and when we are assured that we have touched it and hold its power within us.

— Joseph Joubert

Chance generally favors the prudent.

— Joseph Joubert

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

— Joseph Joubert

The mind's direction is more important than its progress.

— Joseph Joubert

We always believe God is like ourselves, the indulgent think him indulgent and the stern, terrible.

— Joseph Joubert

Grace is in garments, in movements, in manners; beauty in the nude, and in forms. This is true of bodies; but when we speak of feelings, beauty is in their spirituality, and grace in their moderation.

— Joseph Joubert

There is always some frivolity in excellent minds; they have wings to rise, but also stray.

— Joseph Joubert

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

— Joseph Joubert

Imagination is the eye of the soul.

— Joseph Joubert

One who has imagination without learning has wings without feet.

— Joseph Joubert

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

— Joseph Joubert

Kindness is loving people more than they deserve.

— Joseph Joubert

Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.

— Joseph Joubert

Logic works, metaphysics contemplates.

— Joseph Joubert

Politeness is the flower of humanity.

— Joseph Joubert

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

— Joseph Joubert

Ornaments were invented by modesty.

— Joseph Joubert

Monuments are the grappling-irons that bind one generation to another.

— Joseph Joubert

How many people make themselves abstract to appear profound. The most useful part of abstract terms are the shadows they create to hide a vacuum.

— Joseph Joubert

Drawing is speaking to the eye; talking is painting to the ear.

— Joseph Joubert

You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.

— Joseph Joubert

They are like the clue in the labyrinth, or the compass in the night.

— Joseph Joubert

Space is the stature of God.

— Joseph Joubert

Without the spiritual world the material world is a disheartening enigma.

— Joseph Joubert

Superstition is the only religion of which base souls are capable of.

— Joseph Joubert

To teach is to learn twice.

— Joseph Joubert

Tenderness is the rest of passion.

— Joseph Joubert

What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight.

— Joseph Joubert

Words are like eyeglasses they blur everything that they do not make clear.

— Joseph Joubert

Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure. Emotion is easily transferred from the writer to the reader.

— Joseph Joubert

The passions of the young are vices in the old.

— Joseph Joubert

Ask the young. They know everything.

— Joseph Joubert