Joseph Joubert Quotes

Be charitable and indulge to everyone, but thyself.

Ask the young. They know everything.

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

Without the spiritual world the material world is a disheartening enigma.

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

Misery is almost always the result of thinking.

Love and fear. Everything the father of a family says must inspire one or the other.

He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet.

The direction of the mind is more important than its progress.

The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.

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.

Grace is in garments, in movements, in manners; beauty in the nude, and in forms. This is true of bodies; but when we speak of feelings, beauty is in their spirituality, and grace in their moderation.

Children need models rather than critics.

We must respect the past, and mistrust the present, if we wish to provide for the safety of the future.

Logic works, metaphysics contemplates.

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

Politeness is the flower of humanity.

Only choose in marriage a man whom you would choose as a friend if he were a woman.

Never cut what you can untie.

The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.

To teach is to learn twice.

Imagination is the eye of the soul.

When you go in search of honey you must expect to be stung by bees.

Kindness is loving people more than they deserve.

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.