Joseph Joubert Quotes

You want to talk to someone: first open your ears.

It is not light that burns, that purifies, that consumes, that divides, and that recomposes; it is fire. And this fire we are talking about always follows light.

We love repose of mind so well, that we are arrested by anything which has even the appearance of truth; and so we fall asleep on clouds.

Objects must be described only in order to describe the feelings they envoke in us.

Courage (in a soldier) is maintained by a certain anger; anger is a little blind and likes to strike out. And from this follows a thousand abuses, a thousand evils and misfortunes that are impossible to predict in an army during war.

The paper is patient, but the reader is not.

Of what must be said and what must not be said. The importance of knowing.

Let us remember that everything is double.

We comprehend the earth only when we have known heaven. Without the spiritual world the material world is a disheartening enigma.

Are you listening to the ones who keep quiet?

Everyone makes and has need of making a world other than the one he sees.

One must be an illusionary rather than a visionary.

The soul paints itself in our machines.

The people. They know how to know, but not how to choose.

Enseigner, c'est apprendre deux fois