Joseph Joubert

In these times when, to express ourselves, we must speak in a way others do not.

One must know how to enter the ideas of others and how to leave them. One must know how to leave one's own ideas and how to come back to them.

Beyond the brain, there is something that observes the brain itself.

One ruins the mind with too much writing. — One rusts it by not writing at all.

There must be several voices together in one voice for it to be beautiful. And several meanings in one word for it to be beautiful.

It seems there is something spiritual in wine.

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

In every kind of debauch there enters much coldness of soul. It is a conscious and voluntary abuse of pleasure.

Beauty is something animal, the beautiful is something celestial.

I stop when I see no more light; it is impossible for me to write by feeling my way.

Conversation. — Because they have many of those ideas that, to be shown, have need of eyes, gestures, voice, a whole multitude of signs that the written word does not accompany. One sees the soul in operation.

I have too much brain for my head. It cannot play comfortably in its box.