“You go to truth by way of poetry and I go to poetry by way of truth.”

— Joseph Joubert, The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, 1883

About Joseph Joubert

1754 – 1824

French moralist and essayist, author of the "Pensées".

“Old age deprives the intelligent man only of qualities useless to wisdom.”

“We comprehend the earth only when we have known heaven.”

“Some find activity only in repose, and others repose only in movement.”

“Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.”

“A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images.”

“Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.”

“Beauty without purpose is beauty without virtue.”

“It is folly to anticipate evils, and madness to create imaginary ones.”

“Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.”