Joseph Joubert
Joseph Joubert
Joseph Joubertwas a French moralist and essayist, remembered today largely for his Pensées, which was published posthumously...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth7 May 1754
CountryFrance
simplicity taste
Taste has never been corrupted by simplicity.
beautiful truth easier
It is easier to be mistaken about the true than the beautiful.
success men giving
If fortune wishes to make a man estimable, she gives him virtues; if she wishes to make him esteemed, she gives him success.
truth loving-nature soul
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.
gold use coins
In the interchange of thought use no coin but gold and silver.
vanity handsome next
It would be next to impossible to discover a handsome woman who was not also a vain woman.
kindness grace modesty
Grace imitates modesty, as politeness imitates kindness.
giving soul flavor
Virtue is the health of the soul. It gives a flavor to the smallest leaves of life.
writing air voice
The voice is a human sound which nothing inanimate can perfectly imitate. It has an authority and an insinuating property which writing lacks. It is not merely so much air, but air modulated and impregnated with life.
children men animal
Fancy, an animal faculty, is very different from imagination, which is intellectual. The former is passive; but the latter is active and creative. Children, the weak minded, and the timid are full of fancy. Men and women of intellect, of great intellect, are alone possessed of great imagination.
character hypocrite men
A man who shows no defect is a fool or a hypocrite, whom we should mistrust. There are defects so bound to fine qualities that they announce them,--defects which it is well not to correct.
tree looks youth
I resemble the poplar,--that tree which, even when old, still looks young.
criticism should charm
Criticism even should not be without its charms. When quite devoid of all amenities, it is no longer literary.
clothes age youth
In clothes clean and fresh there is a kind of youth with which age should surround itself.