Quotes by Joseph Joubert

Those for whom the world is not enough: saints, conquerors, poets, and all lovers of books.

Through memory we travel against time, through forgetfulness we follow its course.

Few minds are spacious; few even have an empty place in them or can offer some vacant point. Almost all have narrow capacities and are filled by some knowledge that blocks them up. What a torture to talk to filled heads, that allow nothing from the outside to enter them! A good mind, in order to enjoy itself and allow itself to enjoy others, always keeps itself larger than its own thoughts. And in order to do this, these thoughts must be given a pliant form, must be easily folded and unfolded, so that they are capable, finally, of maintaining a natural flexibility.All those short-sighted minds see clearly within their little ideas and see nothing in those of others; they are like those bad eyes that see from close range what is obscure and cannot perceive what is clear from afar. Night minds, minds of darkness.

Questions show the minds range, and answers its subtlety.

There are those to whom one must advise madness.

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

Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth.

The breath of the mind is attention 128

Drawing is speaking to the eye talking is painting to the ear.

Chance usually favors the prudent man.

Children have more need of models than of critics.

The spectacle has changed but our eyes remain the same.

Education should be gentle and stern not cold and lax.

What a man knows only through feeling can be explained only through enthusiasm.

Think of the ills from which you are exempt.

Luckily I never feel at one time more than half my pains.

Happy is the man who can do only one thing: in doing it he fulfills his destiny.

When my friends lack an eye I look at them in profile.

Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.

Without duty life is soft and boneless.