Joseph Joubert Quotes - Page 7

In the interchange of thought use no coin but gold and silver.

Fear loves the idea of danger.

In these times gain is not only a matter of greed, but of ambition.

Politeness smooths wrinkles.

A man who shows no defect is a fool or a hypocrite, whom we should mistrust. There are defects so bound to fine qualities that they announce them,--defects which it is well not to correct.

It would be next to impossible to discover a handsome woman who was not also a vain woman.

It is not my words that I polish, but my ideas.

All are born to observe order, but few are born to establish it.

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

A work is perfectly finished only when nothing can be added to it and nothing taken away.

I quit Paris unwillingly, because I must part from my friends; and I quit the country unwillingly, because I must part from myself.

When a nation gives birth to a man who is able to produce a great thought, another is born who is able to understand and admire it.

Without duty, life is soft and boneless.

The lively phraseology of Montesquieu was the result of long meditation. His words, as light as wings, bear on them grave reflections.

Credulity forges more miracles than trickery could invent.

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

National literature begins with fables and ends with novels.

If fortune wishes to make a man estimable, she gives him virtues; if she wishes to make him esteemed, she gives him success.

Innocence is always unsuspicious.

One day, a daughter of Aristotle, Pythias by name, was asked what color pleased her most. She replied, "The color with which modesty suffuses the face of simple, inoffensive men.

Old age takes from the man of intellect no qualities save those that are useless to wisdom.

You arrive at truth through poetry; I arrive at poetry through truth.

Genuine witticisms surprise those who say them as much as those who listen to them; they arise in us in spite of us, or, at least, without our participation,--like everything inspired.

Sexes. One has the look of a wound, the other of something skinned.

Nothing which does not transport is poetry. The lyre is a winged instrument.