Quotes from Joseph Joubert

It is better to stir up a question without deciding it, than to decide it without stirring it up.

One who has imagination without learning has wings without feet.

Love and fear. Everything the father of a family says must inspire one or the other.

Grace is in garments, in movements, in manners beauty in the nude, and in forms. This is true of bodies but when we speak of feelings, beauty is in their spirituality, and grace in their moderation.

Justice is the truth in action.

Superstition is the only religion of which base souls are capable of.

It is easy to understand God as long as you don't try to explain him.

I would fain coin wisdom,—mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted. Would that I could denounce and banish from the language of men—as base money—the words by which they cheat and are cheated!

Kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.

You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.

When one has too great a dread of what is impending, one feels some relief when the trouble has come.

Children need models more than they need critics.

Choose in marriage only a woman whom you would choose as a friend if she were a man.

He who has imagination without learning has feet but no wings.

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination.

Let us have justice, and then we shall have enough liberty

Ornaments were invented by modesty.

Politeness is the flower of humanity.

The mind conceives with pain, but it brings forth with delight.

The mind's direction is more important than its progress.

The pain of dispute exceeds, by much, its utility. All disputation makes the mind deaf, and when people are deaf I am dumb.

The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.

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

When you go in search of honey, you must expect to be stung by bees.