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Quotes from Pearls of Thought — Joseph Joubert

1754–1824 France

← All quotes by Joseph Joubert

40 quotes

All the passions seek after whatever nourishes them. Fear loves the idea of danger.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

Nothing which does not transport is poetry. The lyre is a winged instrument.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

Truth takes the stamp of the souls it enters. It is rigorous and rough in arid souls, but tempers and softens itself in loving natures.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

Remorse is the punishment of crime; repentance its expiation. The former appertains to a tormented conscience; the latter to a soul changed for the better.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

Fully to understand a grand and beautiful thought requires, perhaps, as much time as to conceive it.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

In the present day our literary masonry is well done, but our architecture is poor.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

History needs distance, perspective. Facts and events which are too well attested cease, in some sort, to be malleable.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

When a nation gives birth to a man who is able to produce a great thought, another is born who is able to understand and admire it.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

The mind is the atmosphere of the soul.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

I would fain coin wisdom,—mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

The lively phraseology of Montesquieu was the result of long meditation. His words, as light as wings, bear on them grave reflections.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

Imitate time. It destroys slowly. It undermines, wears, loosens, separates. It does not uproot.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

Piety is a kind of modesty. It makes us turn aside our thoughts, as modesty makes us cast down our eyes in the presence of whatever is forbidden.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

We are all of us more or less echoes, repeating involuntarily the virtues, the defects, the movements, and the characters of those among whom we live.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

A temperate style is alone classical.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

Chance generally favors the prudent.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

Justice is truth in action.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

A reason is often good, not because it is conclusive, but because it is dramatic,—because it has the stamp of him who urges it, and is drawn from his own resources. For there are arguments ex homine as well as ad hominem.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

Chastity enables the soul to breathe a pure air in the foulest places; continence makes her strong, no matter in what condition the body may be; her sway over the senses makes her queenly; her light and peace render her beautiful.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

I do not call reason that brutal reason which crushes with its weight what is holy and sacred; that malignant reason which delights in the errors it succeeds in discovering; that unfeeling and scornful reason which insults credulity.

Pearls of Thought (1881)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Joseph Joubert (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.