Only just the right proportion of wit should be put into a book; in conversation a little too much is allowable.
We may convince others by our arguments; but we can persuade them only by their own.
Frankness is a natural quality; constant veracity is a virtue.
In pondering such golden sentences, one is constantly incited to make maxims one’s self; which, indeed, is a part of the value of this kind of literature.
Gravity is but the rind of wisdom; but it is a preservative rind.
The foregoing happy English rendering of the French maxim we borrow from Mr. Henry Attwell, who has published a selection of Joubert’s pensées translated, the translation being accompanied with the original text.
Children have more need of patterns than of critics.
Children should be made reasonable, but they should not be made reasoners. The first thing to teach them is that it is reasonable for them to obey and unreasonable for them to dispute. Without that, education would waste itself in bandying arguments, and every thing would be lost if all teachers were not clever cavillers.
In a poem there should be not only poetry of images, but poetry of ideas.