Joseph Roux Quotes

God often visits us, but most of the time we are not at home.

When orators and auditors have the same prejudices, those prejudices run a great risk of being made to stand for incontestable truths.

Solitude vivifies, isolation kills.

Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.

Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite impressions.

A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.

There is a slowness in affairs which ripens them, and a slowness which rots them.

Conscientious men are, almost everywhere, less encouraged than tolerated.

Persons of delicate taste endure stupid criticism better than they do stupid praise.

Reason guides but a small part of man, and the rest obeys feeling, true or false, and passion, good or bad.

There are people who laugh to show their fine teeth; and there are those who cry to show their good hearts.

Nothing vivifies, and nothing kills, like the emotions.

I look at what I have not and think myself unhappy; others look at what I have and think me happy.

The happiness which is lacking makes one think even the happiness one has unbearable.

Literature was formerly an art and finance a trade; today it is the reverse.

Experience comprises illusions lost, rather than wisdom gained.

What is slander? A verdict of "guilty" pronounced in the absence of the accused, with closed doors, without defence or appeal, by an interested and prejudiced judge.

The folly which we might have ourselves committed is the one which we are least ready to pardon in another.

Lofty mountains are full of springs; great hearts are full of tears.

When unhappy, one doubts everything when happy one doubts nothing.

The orator is the mouth (os) of a nation.

In youth one has tears without grief; in age, griefs without tears

Say nothing good of yourself, you will be distrusted; say nothing bad of yourself, you will be taken at your word.

Education, properly understood, is that which teaches discernment.

Have friends, not for the sake of receiving, but of giving.

Since unhappiness excites interest, many, in order to render themselves interesting, feign unhappiness.

Science is for those who learn; poetry, for those who know.

Present unhappiness is selfish; past sorrow is compassionate.

Success causes us to be more praised than known.

Our experience is composed rather of illusions lost than of wisdom acquired.

That which we know is but little; that which we have a presentiment of is immense; it is in this direction that the poet outruns the learned man.

The man abandoned by his friends, one after another, without just cause, will acquire, the reputation of being hard to please, changeable, ungrateful, unsociable.

Friends are rare for, the good reason that men are not common.

The vital air of friendship is composed of confidence. Friendship perishes in proportion as this air diminishes.

No labor is hopeless.

The egoist does not tolerate egoism.

Philosophers call God the great unknown The great misknown is more like it!

The chief cause of our misery is less the violence of our passions than the feebleness of our virtues.

We often experience more regret over the part we have left, than pleasure over the part we have preferred.

At first we hope too much and later on, not enough.

The philosopher spends in becoming a man the time which the ambitious man spends in becoming a personage.

A face which is always serene possesses a mysterious and powerful attraction: sad hearts come to it as to the sun to warm themselves again.

It is impossible to be just if one is not generous.

To love is to choose.

Pleasure once tasted satisfies less than the desire experienced for its torments.

Great souls are harmonious.

Length of saying makes languor of hearing.

Interest, ambition, fortune, time, temper, love, all kill friendship.

The city does not take away, neither does the country give, solitude; solitude is within us.

Great dejection often follows great enthusiasm.