Joseph Joubert > Quotes

“The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.”
― Joseph Joubert

“Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth.”
― Joseph Joubert

“When you go in search of honey, you must expect to be stung by bees.”
― Joseph Joubert

“It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.”
― Joseph Joubert

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

“To teach is to learn twice.”
― Joseph Joubert

“Never cut what you can untie”
― Joseph Joubert

“لا أحب الكتب الجديدة .. أنها تمنعني من قراءة الكتب القديمة”
― Joseph Joubert

“Children need models rather than critics.”
― Joseph Joubert

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

“Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.”
― Joseph Joubert

“Imagination is the eye of the soul”
― joseph joubert

“Only choose in marriage a man whom you would choose as a friend if he were a woman.”
― Joseph Joubert

“Misery is almost always the result of thinking.”
― Joseph Joubert

“You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you.”
― Joseph Joubert

“He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet.”
― Joseph Joubert

“The paper is patient, but the reader is not.”
― Joseph Joubert, The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert: A Selection

“The breath of the mind is attention 128”
― Joseph Joubert, The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert: A Selection

“There are those to whom one must advise madness.”
― Joseph Joubert

“Close your eyes and see.”
― Joseph Joubert

“We may convince others by our arguements, but we can only persuade them by their own”
― Joseph Joubert

“It is not my words that I polish, but my ideas. 102”
― Joseph Joubert, The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert: A Selection

“Everything has its poetry. 94”
― Joseph Joubert, The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert: A Selection

“Few minds are spacious; few even have an empty place in them or can offer some vacant point. Almost all have narrow capacities and are filled by some knowledge that blocks them up. What a torture to talk to filled heads, that allow nothing from the outside to enter them! A good mind, in order to enjoy itself and allow itself to enjoy others, always keeps itself larger than its own thoughts. And in order to do this, these thoughts must be given a pliant form, must be easily folded and unfolded, so that they are capable, finally, of maintaining a natural flexibility.

All those short-sighted minds see clearly within their little ideas and see nothing in those of others; they are like those bad eyes that see from close range what is obscure and cannot perceive what is clear from afar. Night minds, minds of darkness.”
― Joseph Joubert, The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert: A Selection

“Questions show the mind's range, and answers its subtlety.”
― 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

“God is the place where I do not remember the rest.”
― Joseph Joubert

“Pleasures are always children, pains always have wrinkles.”
― Joseph Joubert

“Children always want to look behind mirrors.”
― Joseph Joubert

“Through memory we travel against time, through forgetfulness we follow its course.”
― Joseph Joubert, The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert: A Selection