Background Image

...

The Worst Thing About New Books Is That They Keep Us From Reading The Old Ones.

-Joseph Joubert

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Worst Thing About

Joseph Joubert

...

The Worst Thing About New Books Is That They Keep Us From Reading The Old Ones.

Views: 9476

Topic

More From Joseph Joubert

Fate And Necessity Are Unconquerable.

Genius Begins Great Works; Labor Alone Finishes Them.

Only Choose In Marriage A Man Whom You Would Choose As A Friend If He Were A Woman.

Wedding Anniversary

Sexes. One Has The Look Of A Wound, The Other Of Something Skinned.

One Man Finds In Religion His Literature And His Science, Another Finds In It His Joy And His Duty.

Old Age Takes From The Man Of Intellect No Qualities Save Those That Are Useless To Wisdom.

The Best Remedy For A Short Temper Is A Long Walk.

It Would Be Next To Impossible To Discover A Handsome Woman Who Was Not Also A Vain Woman.

Old Age Was Naturally More Honored In Times When People Could Not Know Much More Than What They Had Seen.

In Temperance There Is Ever Cleanliness And Elegance.

No One Is Mediocre Who Has Good Sense And Good Sentiments.

I Love Prudence Very Little, If It Is Not Moral.

Grace Imitates Modesty, As Politeness Imitates Kindness.

When You Give, Give With Joy And Smiling.

Truth Consists Of Having The Same Idea About Something That God Has.

A False Mind Is False In Everything, Just As A Cross Eye Always Looks Askant. But One May Err Once, Nay, A Hundred Times, Without Being Double-minded. There Can Never Be Mental Duplicity Where There Is Sincerity.

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.

Pleasures Are Always Children, Pains Always Have Wrinkles.

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.

Words, Like Glasses, Obscure Everything They Do Not Make Clear. Before Using A Fine Word, Make A Place For It.

Old Age Deprives The Intelligent Man Only Of Qualities Useless To Wisdom.

Mediocrity Is Excellent To The Eyes Of Mediocre People.

Today There Are No More Irreconcilable Enmities, Because There Are No More Disinterested Emotions: That's A Good Thing Born From A Bad Thing.

There Are Some Men Who Are Witty When They Are In A Bad Humor, And Others Only When They Are Sad.

There Is Always Some Frivolity In Excellent Minds; They Have Wings To Rise, But Also Stray.

The Essential Thing Is Not That There Be Many Truths In A Work, But That No Truth Be Abused.

Good Impulses Are Naught, Unless They Become Good Actions.

Before You Use A Fancy Word, Make Room For It.

In Really Good Acting We Should Be Able To Believe That What We Hear And See Is Of Our Own Imagining; It Should Seem To Be To Us As A Charming Dream.

Strength Is Not Energy; Some Authors Have More Muscles Than Talent.

Which Is More Misshapen,--religion Without Virtue, Or Virtue Without Religion?

Religion Must Be Loved As A Kind Of Country And Nursing-mother. It Was Religion That Nourished Our Virtues, That Showed Us Heaven, That Taught Us To Walk In The Path Of Duty.

To The Liberal Ideas Of The Age Must Be Opposed The Moral Ideas Of All Ages.

Misery Is Almost Always The Result Of Thinking.

Genius Is The Ability To See Things Invisible, To Manipulate Things Intangible, To Paint Things That Have No Features

Our Life Is Woven Wind.

A Maxim Is The Exact And Noble Expression Of An Important And Indisputable Truth. Good Maxims Are The Germs Of All Excellence; When Firmly Fixed On The Memory, They Nourish The Will.

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.

When Credulity Comes From The Heart It Does No Harm To The Intellect.

Never Cut What You Can Untie.

Young Authors Give Their Brains Much Exercise And Little Food.

Let Your Cry Be For Free Souls Rather Than For Freedom. Moral Liberty Is The Only Important Liberty.

Necessity May Render A Doubtful Act Innocent, But It Cannot Make It Praiseworthy

Genuinely Good Remarks Surprise Their Author As Well As His Audience.

The Lively Phraseology Of Montesquieu Was The Result Of Long Meditation. His Words, As Light As Wings, Bear On Them Grave Reflections.

We Use Up In The Passions The Stuff That Was Given Us For Happiness.

We Disjoint The Mind Like The Body.

To See The World Is To Judge The Judges.

Virtue Is The Health Of The Soul.

Abuse Of Words Is The Foundation Of Ideology.

Thoughts There Are, That Need No Embodying, No Form, No Expression. It Is Enough To Hint At Them Vaguely; A Word, And They Are Heard And Seen.

The Evening Of Life Brings With It Its Lamps.

Haughty People Seem To Me To Have, Like The Dwarfs, The Stature Of A Child And The Face Of A Man.

Logic Is To Grammar What The Sense Of Words Is To Their Sound.

A Few Words Worthy To Be Remembered Suffice To Give An Idea Of A Great Mind. There Are Single Thoughts That Contain The Essence Of A Whole Volume, Single Sentences That Have The Beauties Of A Large Work, A Simplicity So Finished And So Perfect That It Equals In Merit And In Excellence A Large And Glorious Composition.

Men Must Be Either The Slaves Of Duty, Or The Slaves Of Force.

To Be Capable Of Respect Is Almost As Rare As To Be Worthy Of It.

We Know God Easily, If We Do Not Constrain Ourselves To Define Him.

Ornaments Were Invented By Modesty.

It Is Easier To Be Mistaken About The True Than The Beautiful.

In The Interchange Of Thought Use No Coin But Gold And Silver.

We Are All Of Us More Or Less Echoes, Repeating Involuntarily The Virtues, The Defects, The Movements, And The Characters Of Those Among Whom We Live.

He Who Has Imagination Without Learning Has Wings But No Feet.

The Passions Should Be Purged; All May Become Innocent If They Are Well Directed And Moderated. Even Hatred Maybe A Commendable Feeling When It Is Caused By A Lively Love Of Good. Whatever Makes The Passions Pure, Makes Them Stronger, More Durable, And More Enjoyable.

The Joy Which Is Caused By Truth And Noble Thoughts Shows Itself In The Words By Which They Are Expressed.

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!

He Who Has Not The Weakness Of Friendship Has Not The Strength.

One Can With Dignity Be Wife And Widow But Once.

Reason Is A Bee, And Exists Only On What It Makes; His Usefulness Takes The Place Of Beauty.

The Talkative Man Speaks From His Mouth, The Eloquent Man Speaks From His Heart.

We Should Always Keep A Corner Of Our Heads Open And Free, That We May Make Room For The Opinions Of Our Friends. Let Us Have Heart And Head Hospitality.

Speech Is But The Incorporation Of Thought.

Never Be Sad For What Is Over, Just Be Glad It Was Once Yours. Kindness Is Loving People More Than They Deserve.

There Are Those To Whom One Must Advise Madness.

Whence? Wither? Why? How? - These Questions Cover All Philosophy.

Children Need Models Rather Than Critics.

The Sound Of The Drum Drives Out Thought; For That Very Reason It Is The Most Military Of Instruments.

Religion Is Neither A Theology Nor A Theosophy; It Is More Than That, It Is A Discipline, A Law, A Yoke, An Indissoluble Engagement.

Justice Is The Truth In Action.

Think Of The Ills From Which You Are Exempt.

The Mind's Direction Is More Important Than Its Progress.

When A Nation Gives Birth To A Man Who Is Able To Produce A Great Thought, Another Is Born Who Is Able To Understand And Admire It.

Tenderness Is The Rest Of Passion.

God Multiplies Intelligence, Which Communicates Itself, Like Fire, Ad Infinitum. Light A Thousand Torches At One Touch, The Flame Remains Always The Same.

The Bible Is To Religion What The Iliad Is To Poetry

What Can One Possibly Introduce Into A Mind That Is Already Full, And Full Of Itself?

One Day, A Daughter Of Aristotle, Pythias By Name, Was Asked What Color Pleased Her Most. She Replied, "the Color With Which Modesty Suffuses The Face Of Simple, Inoffensive Men.

Ideas Never Lack For Words. It Is Words That Lack Ideas.

We Always Believe God Is Like Ourselves, The Indulgent Think Him Indulgent And The Stern, Terrible.

The Idea Of The Nest In The Bird's Mind, Where Does It Come From?

Politeness Smooths Wrinkles.

There Is An Admiration Which Is The Daughter Of Knowledge.

All Luxury Corrupts Either The Morals Or The Taste.

Our Worries Always Come From Our Weaknesses.

There Are Some Heads Which Have No Windows, And The Day Can Never Strike From Above; Nothing Enters From Heavenard.

A Fluent Writer Always Seems More Talented Than He Is. To Write Well, One Needs A Natural Felicity And An Acquired Difficulty.

The Ordinary True, Or Purely Real, Cannot Be The Object Of The Arts. Illusion On A Ground Of Truth,--that Is The Secret Of The Fine Arts.

When The Painter Wishes To Represent An Event, He Cannot Place Before Us Too Great A Number Of Personages; But He Cannot Employ Too Few When He Wishes To Portray An Emotion.

Luckily, I Never Feel At One Time More Than Half My Pains.

Work Like You Don't Need The Money.

When We Love, It Is The Heart That Judges.

The God Of Metaphysics Is But An Idea. But The God Of Religion, The Maker Of Heaven And Earth, The Sovereign Judge Of Actions And Thoughts, Is A Power.

The Worst Thing About New Books Is That They Keep Us From Reading The Old Ones.

Let Us Have Justice, And Then We Shall Have Enough Liberty!

It May Be Said That It Is With Our Thoughts As With Our Flowers. Those Whose Expression Is Simple Carry Their Seed With Them; Those That Are Double By Their Richness And Pomp Charm The Mind, But Produce Nothing.

Think That Day Lost Whose Descending Sun, Views From Thy Hand No Noble Action Done.

Chance Generally Favors The Prudent.

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.

Order Is To Arrangement What The Soul Is To The Body, And What Mind Is To Matter.

Education Should Be Gentle And Stern, Not Cold And Lax.

The Essence Of Life Consists In Thinking, And Being Conscious Of One's Soul.

Grief - Happiness Is To Feel That One's Soul Is Good; There Is No Other, In Truth, And This Kind Of Happiness May Exist Even In Sorrow, So That There Are Griefs Perfable To Every Joy, And Such As Would Be Preferred By All Those Who Have Felt Them.

Never Write Anything That Does Not Give You Great Pleasure. Emotion Is Easily Transferred From The Writer To The Reader.

Never Giving Up

Attention Is Like A Narrow Mouthed Vessel; Pour Into It What You Have To Say Cautiously, And, As It Were, Drop By Drop.

Who Ever Has No Fixed Opinions Has No Constant Feelings.

Combien De Gens Se Font Abstraits Pour Para?tre Profonds! La Plupart Des Termes Abstraits Sont Des Ombres Qui Cachent Des Vides. How Many People Become Abstract In Order To Appear Profound! Most Abstract Terms Are Shadows That Conceal A Void.

The Soul Paints Itself In Our Machines.

Fully To Understand A Grand And Beautiful Thought Requires, Perhaps, As Much Time As To Conceive It.

Beautiful Thoughts

Science Confounds Everything; It Gives To The Flowers An Animal Appetite, And Takes Away From Even The Plants Their Chastity.

A Work Is Perfectly Finished Only When Nothing Can Be Added To It And Nothing Taken Away.

God Has Commanded Time To Console The Afflicted.

The Art Of Saying Well What One Thinks Is Different From The Faculty Of Thinking. The Latter May Be Very Deep And Lofty And Far- Reaching, While The Former Is Altogether Wanting.

Nothing Ruins The Truth Like Stretching It... Get Rich Quick! Count Your Blessings... Stop Telling God How Big Your Storm Is. Instead, Tell The Storm How Big Your God Is!!!!!! Contentment Begins Where Comparison Ends. The Aim Of Argument, Or Of Discussion, Should Not Be Victory, But Progress.

When One Has Too Great A Dread Of What Is Impending, One Feels Some Relief When The Trouble Has Come.

Without Duty, Life Is Sort Of Boneless; It Cannot Hold Itself Together.

There Are Single Thoughts That Contain The Essence Of A Whole Volume, Single Sentences That Have The Beauties Of A Large Work.

Contempt For Private Wrongs Was One Of The Features Of Ancient Morals.

All Are Born To Observe Order, But Few Are Born To Establish It.

We Find Little In A Book But What We Put There. But In Great Books, The Mind Finds Room To Put Many Things.

Genius Begins Beautiful Works, But Only Labor Finishes Them.

When My Friends Lack An Eye, I Look At Them In Profile.

He Who Has Imagination Without Learning Has Wings But No Feet. [fr., Celui Qui A De L'imagination Sans Erudition A Des Ailes, Et N'a Pas De Pieds.]

Professional Critics Are Incapable Of Distinguishing And Appreciating Either Diamonds In The Rough Or Gold In Bars. They Are Traders, And In Literature Know Only The Coins That Are Current. Their Critical Lab Has Scales And Weights, But Neither Crucible Or Touchstone.

Heaven Is For Those Who Think Of It.

I Quit Paris Unwillingly, Because I Must Part From My Friends; And I Quit The Country Unwillingly, Because I Must Part From Myself.

The Soul That Is The Abode Of Chastity Acquires An Energy Which Enables Her To Surmount With Ease The Obstacles That Lie Along The Path Of Duty.

Tormented By The Cursed Ambition Always To Put A Whole Book In A Page, A Whole Page In A Sentence, And This Sentence In A Word. I Am Speaking Of Myself.

The Simple-hearted And Sincere Never Do More Than Half Deceive Themselves.

A Temperate Style Is Alone Classical.

The Ways Suited To Confidence Are Familiar To Me, But Not Those That Are Suited To Familiarity.

Eyes Raised Toward Heaven Are Always Beautiful, Whatever They Be.

The Beautiful Invariably Possesses A Visible And A Hidden Beauty; And It Is Certain That No Style Is So Beautiful As That Which Presents To The Attentive Reader A Half-hidden Meaning.

Every Modulated Sound Is Not A Song, And Every Voice That Executes A Beautiful Air Does Not Sing. Singing Should Enchant. But To Produce This Effect There Must Be A Quality Of Soul And Voice Which Is By No Means Common Even With Great Singers.

Taste Has Never Been Corrupted By Simplicity.

Let Us Be Men With Men, And Always Children Before God; For In His Eyes We Are But Children. Old Age Itself, In Presence Of Eternity, Is But The First Moment Of A Morning.

You Will Find Poetry Nowhere Unless You Bring Some Of It With You.

Space Is To Place As Eternity Is To Time.

Religion Is Fire Which Example Keeps Alive, And Which Goes Out If Not Communicated.

Antiquity! I Like Its Ruins Better Than Its Reconstructions.

Politeness Is The Flower Of Humanity.

All Gardeners Live In Beautiful Places Because They Make Them So.

We Should Make Ourselves Loved, For Men Are Only Just Towards Those Whom They Love.

Every Legitimate Authority Should Respect Its Extent And Its Limits.

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.

In Clothes Clean And Fresh There Is A Kind Of Youth With Which Age Should Surround Itself.

Credulity Forges More Miracles Than Trickery Could Invent.

Imitate Time; It Destroys Everything Slowly; It Undermines, It Wears Away, It Detaches, It Does Not Wrench.

Happy Is The Man Who Can Do Only One Thing; In Doing It, He Fulfills His Destiny.

One Should Choose For A Wife Only Such A Woman As He Would Choose For A Friend, Were She A Man.

The True Character Of Epistolary Style Is Playfulness And Urbanity.

There Was A Time When The World Acted On Books; Now Books Act On The World.

Logic Works, Metaphysics Contemplates.

God Is The Place Where I Do Not Remember The Rest.

Virtue By Calculation Is The Virtue Of Vice.

Slander Is The Solace Of Malignity.

Ask The Young. They Know Everything.

Xenophon Wrote With A Swan's Quill, Plato With A Pen Of Gold, And Thucydides With A Brazen Stylus.

Space Is The Stature Of God.

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.

Virtue Is The Health Of The Soul. It Gives A Flavor To The Smallest Leaves Of Life.

It Is Not My Words That I Polish, But My Ideas.

We Live In An Age In Which Superfluous Ideas Abound And Essential Ideas Are Lacking.

Those Readiest To Criticise Are Often Least Able To Appreciate.

Children Must Be Rendered Reasonable, But Not Reasoners. The First Thing To Teach Them Is That It Is Reasonable For Them To Obey, And Unreasonable For Them To Dispute.

Innocence Is Always Unsuspicious.

Be Charitable And Indulge To Everyone, But Thyself.

Words Are Like Eyeglasses They Blur Everything That They Do Not Make Clear.

Words, Like Glass, Obscure When They Do Not Aid Vision.

The Evening Of A Well Spent Youth Brings It's Lamps With It.

Mediocrity Is Excellence In The Eyes Of The Mediocre.

Thus, If The Clarity Of Our Thoughts Comes Through Better In A Play Of Words, Then The Wordplay Is Good. One Must Know How To Enter The Ideas Of Others And How To Leave Them.

If Fortune Wishes To Make A Man Estimable, She Gives Him Virtues; If She Wishes To Make Him Esteemed, She Gives Him Success.

The Paper Is Patient, But The Reader Is Not.

The Mind Conceives With Pain, But It Brings Forth With Delight.

The Punishment Of Those Who Have Loved Women Too Much Is To Love Them Always.

Criticism Even Should Not Be Without Its Charms. When Quite Devoid Of All Amenities, It Is No Longer Literary.

I Resemble The Poplar,--that Tree Which, Even When Old, Still Looks Young.

If You Are Poor, Distinguish Yourself By Your Virtues; If Rich, By Your Good Deeds.

The Early And The Latter Part Of Human Life Are The Best, Or, At Least, The Most Worthy Of Respect; The One As The Age Of Innocence, The Other Of Reason.

In These Times Gain Is Not Only A Matter Of Greed, But Of Ambition.

There Is Graciousness And A Kind Of Urbanity In Beginning With Men By Esteem And Confidence. It Proves, At Least, That We Have Long Lived In Good Company With Others And With Our Selves.

Some Superior Minds Are Unrecognized Because There Is No Standard By Which To Weigh Them.

If Authorities Were Well Organized, There Would Not Be An Unknown Warrior.

Those Who Never Retract Their Opinions Love Themselves More Than They Love The Truth.

Genuine Bon Mots Surprise Those From Whose Lips They Fall, No Less Than They Do Those Who Listen To Them.

Poetry Is To Be Found Nowhere Unless We Carry It Within Us.

We May Convince Others By Our Arguements, But We Can Only Persuade Them By Their Own

A Thought Is A Thing As Real As A Cannonball.

Fear Loves The Idea Of Danger.

In The Commerce Of Language Use Only Coin Of Gold And Silver.

Trending Author

Oliver Cromwell

Alicia Silverstone

Category