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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.

Joseph Joubert

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Joseph Joubert
Age: 69 †
Born: 1754
Born: May 7
Died: 1824
Died: May 4
Essayist
Philosopher
Writer
Always
Sentences
Speaking
Ambition
Pages
Word
Tormented
Book
Cursed
Whole
Sentence
Writing
Page

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Think that day lost whose descending sun, views from thy hand no noble action done.
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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.
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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.
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The mind's direction is more important than its progress.
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Know that morality is a curb, not a spur.
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Words, like glass, obscure when they do not aid vision.
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Ornaments were invented by modesty.
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You want to talk to someone first open your ears.
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A temperate style is alone classical.
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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.
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In temperance there is ever cleanliness and elegance.
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I resemble the poplar,--that tree which, even when old, still looks young.
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There are some heads which have no windows, and the day can never strike from above nothing enters from heavenard.
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Virtue is the health of the soul.
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All good verses are like impromptus made at leisure.
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It would be next to impossible to discover a handsome woman who was not also a vain woman.
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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!
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To be an agreeable guest one need only enjoy oneself.
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Words are like eyeglasses they blur everything that they do not make clear.
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Liquid, flowing words are the choicest and the best, if language is regarded as music. But when it is considered as a picture, then there are rough words which are very telling, they make their mark.
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