Joseph Joubert

It is impossible for me to say something foolish without being aware of it.

What good is modesty? — It makes us seem more beautiful when we are beautiful, and less ugly when we are ugly.

To compensate absence with memory.

A thought is a thing as real as a cannonball.

To seek wisdom rather than truth. It is more within our grasp.

Everything is game except what makes the soul better or worse.

Politeness is the art of bearing boredom without being bored.

Pride swells the brain. Vanity carries with it smoke, minds. Hatred tightens the heart. Love warms the lungs. Admiration stops the heart. We breathe through desire. We want to pump up all that delights, and dilates. Sadness is inaction. The love that comes from the blood, the love that comes from the soul.

Thoughts that cannot survive the open air and that evaporate as soon as we take them out of the room. To put them to the test of isolation. Take them out of the book where you found them, they do not endure.

The staircase that leads to God. What does it matter if it is make-believe, if we really climb it? What difference does it make who builds it, or if it is made of marble or word, of brick, stone, or mud? The essential thing is that it be solid and that in climbing it we feel the peace that is inaccessible to those who do not climb it.

Stars more beautiful to the eyes than the telescope that robs them of their illusions.

My soul lives in a place where the passions have passed by and where I have known them all.