Joseph Joubert

Politeness is the flower of humanity.

The Bible remained for me a book of books still divine - but divine in the sense that all great books are divine which teach men how to live righteously.

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

Imagination is the eye of the soul.

We must respect the past and mistrust the present if we wish to provide for the safety of the future.

The direction of the mind is more important than its progress.

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

Children need models rather than critics.

Justice is the truth in action.

Kindness is loving people more than they deserve.

How many people make themselves abstract to appear profound. The most useful part of abstract terms are the shadows they create to hide a vacuum.

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

Who ever has no fixed opinions has no constant feelings.

Genius begins great works, labor alone finishes them.

Innocence is always unsuspicious.

All are born to observe order but few are born to establish it.

Logic works metaphysics contemplates.

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.

There was a time when the world acted on books, now books act on the world.

Words like glass obscure when they do not aid vision.

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you.

Without the spiritual world the material world is a disheartening enigma.

Space is the stature of God.

Pleasures are always children pains always have wrinkles.

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

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

Misery is almost always the result of thinking.

The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk.

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

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

God is the place where I do not remember the rest.

Never cut what you can untie.

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

One who has imagination without learning has wings without feet.

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

The passions of the young are vices in the old.

To teach is to learn twice.

Be charitable and indulge to everyone but thyself.

The aim of argument or of discussion should not be victory but progress.

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.

Ask the young. They know everything.

Only choose in marriage a man whom you would choose as a friend if he were a woman.

Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure. Emotion is easily transferred from the writer to the reader.

Space is to place as eternity is to time.