Joseph Joubert Quotes

Negative books can be bestsellers, but seldom classics.

If a book really wants the patronage of a great name, it is a bad book; and if it be a good book, it wants it not.

Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.

Some of the most famous books are the least worth reading. Their fame was due to their having done something that needed to be doing in their day. The work is done and the virtue of the book has expired.

A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again.

The only time I was ever approached to write a book was when I was most famous.

No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.

if a book is not good enough for a grownup, it is not good enough for a child.

Never read any book that is not a year old.

There are only two kinds of books -- good books and the others. The good are winnowed from the bad through the democracy of time.

Great books conserve time.

A sure sign of a good book is that you like it more the older you get.

Good books are irrefutable, and bad books refute themselves.

[Preface to second edition:] ... I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be.

Most of the literary classics are worth reading, if you've nothing better to do.

It doesn't really matter what "genre" your book is. What matters is that it's a good book of its kind. Whatever that kind may be.

A classic is a book that survives the circumstances that made it possible yet alone keeps those circumstances alive.

The classic literature is always modern.

A book is judged, not by its reference to life, but by its reference to other books.

The painful warrior famous for fight, After a thousand victories, once foil'd, Is from the books of honor razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd

To my mind that literature is best and most enduring which is characterized by a noble simplicity.

Considering the multitude of mortals that handle the pen in these days, and can mostly spell, and write without glaring violations of grammar, the question naturally arises: How is it, then, that no work proceeds from them, bearing any stamp of authenticity and permanence; of worth for more than one day?

The exercise of letters is sometimes linked to the ambition to construct an absolute book, a book of books that includes the others like a Platonic archetype, an object whose virtues are not diminished by the passage of time.

Really important books to me are the classics. I try very hard to read them well - you know, especially once I got serious about writing.