Joseph Joubert Quotes

French moralist and essayist

Joseph Joubert (7 May 1754 – 4 May 1824) was a French moralist and essayist. He published nothing during his lifetime; after his death in 1824, Joubert's widow entrusted his manuscripts to François-René de Chateaubriand, who published a short selection of them for private circulation, under the title Recueil des Pensées de M. Joubert (Collected Thoughts of Mr. Joubert) (Paris, 1838). This volume was subsequently re-edited with many additions by Paul Raynal, a nephew of the author, under the new title of Pensées, Essais, Maximes et Correspondance de J. Joubert (Thoughts, Essays, Maxims and Correspondence of J. Joubert) (Paris, 1842). A selection from his correspondence was published in 1883.

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They cannot accustom themselves to lacking nothing.

The number of books is infinite.

Here is the desert. In this silence, everything speaks to me: and in your noise, everything falls silent.

The good is worth more than the best.

Wisdom is the strength of the weak.

Writing is closer to thinking than to speaking.

It is not facts, but rumors that cause emotions among the people. What is believed creates everything.

Thought forms in the soul the same way clouds form in the air.

He who has no poetry in himself will find poetry in nothing.

To teach is to learn twice over.

Genius begins beautiful works, but only labor finishes them.

Le génie commence les beaux ouvrages, mais le travail seul les achève.

To be capable of respect is, in these days, almost as rare as to be worthy of it.

When I see young people such as those of our day, I think that Heaven wishes to destroy the world.

All luxury corrupts either the morals or the taste.