Joseph Joubert

Our life is woven wind.

— Joseph Joubert

Virtue by calculation is the virtue of vice.

— Joseph Joubert

Ask the young. They know everything.

— Joseph Joubert

Logic works, metaphysics contemplates.

— Joseph Joubert

Work like you don't need the money.

— Joseph Joubert

Justice is the truth in action.

— Joseph Joubert

Taste is the literary conscience of the soul.

— Joseph Joubert

Justice is the right of the weakest.

— Joseph Joubert

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

— Joseph Joubert

Genius begins beautiful works, but only labor finishes them.

— Joseph Joubert

Genuinely good remarks surprise their author as well as his audience…

— Joseph Joubert

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

— Joseph Joubert

“Children always want to look behind mirrors.”

— Joseph Joubert

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

— Joseph Joubert

Living requires but little life; doing requires much.

— Joseph Joubert

In order to be happy, think of the ills you have been spared.

— Joseph Joubert

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

— Joseph Joubert

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

— Joseph Joubert

The soul that is the abode of chastity acquires an energy which enables her to surmount with ease the obstacles that lie…

— Joseph Joubert

The beautiful invariably possesses a visible and a hidden beauty; and it is certain that no style is so beautiful as that…

— 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 God of metaphysics is but an idea. But the God of religion, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sovereign Judge…

— Joseph Joubert

Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

— Joseph Joubert

Men have torn up the roads which led to Heaven, and which all the world followed; now we have to make our…

— Joseph Joubert

Professional critics are incapable of distinguishing and appreciating either diamonds in the rough or gold in bars. They are traders, and in…

— Joseph Joubert

The voice is a human sound which nothing inanimate can perfectly imitate. It has an authority and an insinuating property which writing…

— Joseph Joubert

Forms of government become established of themselves. They shape themselves, they are not created. We may give them strength and consistency, but…

— Joseph Joubert

A false mind is false in everything, just as a cross eye always looks askant. But one may err once, nay, a…

— Joseph Joubert

The last word should be the last word. It is like a finishing touch given to color; there is nothing more to…

— Joseph Joubert

Genuine witticisms surprise those who say them as much as those who listen to them; they arise in us in spite of…

— Joseph Joubert

There is graciousness and a kind of urbanity in beginning with men by esteem and confidence. It proves, at least, that we…

— Joseph Joubert

The passions should be purged; all may become innocent if they are well directed and moderated. Even hatred maybe a commendable feeling…

— Joseph Joubert

A temperate style is alone classical.

— Joseph Joubert

Taste has never been corrupted by simplicity.

— Joseph Joubert

Think of the ills from which you are exempt.

— Joseph Joubert

It is always our inabilities that vex us.

— Joseph Joubert

“Everything has its poetry. 94”

— Joseph Joubert

Politeness smooths wrinkles.

— Joseph Joubert

We disjoint the mind like the body.

— Joseph Joubert

The mind is the atmosphere of the soul.

— Joseph Joubert