Joseph Joubert Quotes

Perhaps (and probably) it would be true to say that we cannot conceive of anything except what we can see in our minds.

To know: it is to see inside oneself.

Thoughts that cannot survive the open air and that evaporate as soon as we take them out of the room. To put them to the test of isolation. Take them out of the book where you found them, they do not endure.

Ideas never lack for words. It is words that lack ideas. As soon as the idea has come to its last degree of perfection, the word blossoms; or, if you like, it blossoms from the word that presents it and clothes it.

Where do ideas go? They go into the memory of God.

The things we know when not thinking of them.

To speak with his imagination, but to think with his reason.

Pride swells the brain. Vanity carries with it smoke, minds. Hatred tightens the heart. Love warms the lungs. Admiration stops the heart. We breathe through desire. We want to pump up all that delights, and dilates. Sadness is inaction. The love that comes from the blood, the love that comes from the soul.

Politeness is the art of bearing boredom without being bored.

Solitude gives an I. I that gives solitude. It is in our thoughts, and the one the world gives, in our feelings. Because solitude grows accustomed to seeing, to contemplating; and the world, to acting for itself.

It is impossible for me to say something foolish without being aware of it.

We are worth more when someone looks at us. And, because of this, an eye is always watching us.

Everything is game except what makes the soul better or worse.

Let us remember that everything is double.

My soul lives in a place where the passions have passed by and where I have known them all.