Joseph Joubert Quotes - Page 10

Maxims are to the intellect what laws are to actions; they do not enlighten, but they guide and direct, and, although themselves blind, are protective.

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

We disjoint the mind like the body.

The true character of epistolary style is playfulness and urbanity.

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

The passions should be purged; all may become innocent if they are well directed and moderated. Even hatred maybe a commendable feeling when it is caused by a lively love of good. Whatever makes the passions pure, makes them stronger, more durable, and more enjoyable.

The Bible remained for me a book of books, still divine - but divine in the sense that all great books are divine which teach men how to live righteously.

God multiplies intelligence, which communicates itself, like fire, ad infinitum. Light a thousand torches at one touch, the flame remains always the same.

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.

In bringing up a child, think of its old age.

Know that morality is a curb, not a spur.

Haughty people seem to me to have, like the dwarfs, the stature of a child and the face of a man.

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

Religion must be loved as a kind of country and nursing-mother. It was religion that nourished our virtues, that showed us heaven, that taught us to walk in the path of duty.

We shall always keep a spare corner in our heads to give passing hospitality to our friends' opinion.

There is graciousness and a kind of urbanity in beginning with men by esteem and confidence. It proves, at least, that we have long lived in good company with others and with our selves.

Religion is the only metaphysic that the multitude can understand and adopt.

Religion is fire which example keeps alive, and which goes out if not communicated.

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.

He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet. [Fr., Celui qui a de l'imagination sans erudition a des ailes, et n'a pas de pieds.]

Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

Fate and necessity are unconquerable.

We should make ourselves loved, for men are only just towards those whom they love.

When my friends lack an eye, I look at them in profile.

One man finds in religion his literature and his science, another finds in it his joy and his duty.