Joseph Joubert Quotes - Page 9

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.

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.

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.

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.

Education should be gentle and stern, not cold and lax.

In clothes clean and fresh there is a kind of youth with which age should surround itself.

Science confounds everything; it gives to the flowers an animal appetite, and takes away from even the plants their chastity.

Professional critics are incapable of distinguishing and appreciating either diamonds in the rough or gold in bars. They are traders, and in literature know only the coins that are current. Their critical lab has scales and weights, but neither crucible or touchstone.

Fancy, an animal faculty, is very different from imagination, which is intellectual. The former is passive; but the latter is active and creative. Children, the weak minded, and the timid are full of fancy. Men and women of intellect, of great intellect, are alone possessed of great imagination.

Avoid singularity. There may often be less vanity in following the new modes than in adhering to the old ones. It is true that the foolish invent them, but the wise may conform to, instead of contradicting, them.

I would fain coin wisdom,—mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted. Would that I could denounce and banish from the language of men—as base money—the words by which they cheat and are cheated!

Order is to arrangement what the soul is to the body, and what mind is to matter.

Only just the right quantum of wit should be put into a book; in conversation a little excess is allowable.

If authorities were well organized, there would not be an Unknown Warrior.

A few words worthy to be remembered suffice to give an idea of a great mind. There are single thoughts that contain the essence of a whole volume, single sentences that have the beauties of a large work, a simplicity so finished and so perfect that it equals in merit and in excellence a large and glorious composition.

He who has not the weakness of friendship has not the strength.

How many books there are whose reputation is made that would not obtain it were it now to make?

Young authors give their brains much exercise and little food.

Grace imitates modesty, as politeness imitates kindness.

When credulity comes from the heart it does no harm to the intellect.

Genuine bon mots surprise those from whose lips they fall, no less than they do those who listen to them.

Words become luminous when the poet's finger has passed over them its phosphorescence.

Forms of government become established of themselves. They shape themselves, they are not created. We may give them strength and consistency, but we cannot call them into being. Let us rest assured that the form of government can never be a matter of choice: it is almost always a matter of necessity.

There was a time when the world acted on books; now books act on the world.

To be an agreeable guest one need only enjoy oneself.