Joseph Joubert
Old age deprives the intelligent man only of qualities useless to wisdom.Collection: Intelligent
Genius begins beautiful works, but only labor finishes them.Collection: Beautiful
Mediocrity is excellence in the eyes of the mediocre.Collection: Inspirational
We should do good whenever we can and do kindness at all times, for at all times we can.Collection: Kindness
How many people eat, drink, and get married; buy, sell, and build; make contracts and attend to their fortune; have friends and enemies, pleasures and pains, are born, grow up, live and die - but asleep!Collection: Growing Up
There is in the soul a taste for the good, just as there is in the body an appetite for enjoyment.Collection: Soul
There are those to whom one must advise madness.Collection: Madness
Lenity is a part of justice; but she must not speak too loud for fear of waking justice.Collection: Justice
All luxury corrupts either the morals or the taste.Collection: Luxury
The idea of the nest in the bird's mind, where does it come from?Collection: Ideas
Necessity may render a doubtful act innocent, but it cannot make it praiseworthyCollection: May
To see the world is to judge the judges.Collection: Travel
Virtue is the health of the soul. It gives a flavor to the smallest leaves of life.Collection: Giving
The punishment of those who have loved women too much is to love them always.Collection: Love
Justice is the right of the weakest.Collection: Justice
Our life is woven wind.Collection: Life
The simple-hearted and sincere never do more than half deceive themselves.Collection: Simple
Which is more misshapen,--religion without virtue, or virtue without religion?Collection: Religion
The supreme sway of chastity over the senses makes her queenly.Collection: Chastity
Illusion and wisdom combined are the charm of life and art.Collection: Art
Today there are no more irreconcilable enmities, because there are no more disinterested emotions: that's a good thing born from a bad thing.Collection: Enmity
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.Collection: Dream
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.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Punishment
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.Collection: Art
Education should be gentle and stern, not cold and lax.Collection: Education
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.Collection: Play
What can you possibly add to a mind that's full, especially one that's full of itself.Collection: Mind
In clothes clean and fresh there is a kind of youth with which age should surround itself.Collection: Clothes
Science confounds everything; it gives to the flowers an animal appetite, and takes away from even the plants their chastity.Collection: Flower
When you give, give with joy and smiling.Collection: Giving
I resemble the poplar,--that tree which, even when old, still looks young.Collection: Tree
We find little in a book but what we put there. But in great books, the mind finds room to put many things.Collection: Book
Nothing ruins the truth like stretching it... GET RICH QUICK! Count your blessings... Stop telling GOD how big your storm is. Instead, tell the storm how big your GOD is!!!!!! Contentment begins where comparison ends. The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.Collection: Blessing
Abuse of words is the foundation of ideology.Collection: Evil
Truth consists of having the same idea about something that God has.Collection: Truth
Virtue is the health of the soul.Collection: Healthy
The ordinary true, or purely real, cannot be the object of the arts. Illusion on a ground of truth,--that is the secret of the fine arts.Collection: Art
Children must be rendered reasonable, but not reasoners. The first thing to teach them is that it is reasonable for them to obey, and unreasonable for them to dispute.Collection: Children
A maxim is the exact and noble expression of an important and indisputable truth. Good maxims are the germs of all excellence; when firmly fixed on the memory, they nourish the will.Collection: Inspirational
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.Collection: Liquid
Old age was naturally more honored in times when people could not know much more than what they had seen.Collection: People
Beautiful works do not intoxicate, but they enchant.Collection: Beauty
When we love, it is the heart that judges.Collection: Love
Luckily, I never feel at one time more than half my pains.Collection: Pain
Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.Collection: Writing
We always believe God is like ourselves, the indulgent think him indulgent and the stern, terrible.Collection: God
Before you use a fancy word, make room for it.Collection: Writing
The evening of life brings with it its lamps.Collection: Age