Joseph Joubert Quotes

Combien de gens se font abstraits pour para?tre profonds! La plupart des termes abstraits sont des ombres qui cachent des vides. How many people become abstract in order to appear profound! Most abstract terms are shadows that conceal a void.

The world is full of people who are very clever at seeming much smarter than they really are.

If you want to be a Roman Catholic scholar and write, you've got to write in such a way that nobody understands what you're saying, and then you're thought to be profound.

I hate people who over intellectualize. It bores me deeply.

Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty thousand page menu, and no food.

He wrapped himself in quotations - as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

I tend to read quite serious things in order to try and appear superior.

Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound. It is so timid and dislikes going into the water.

Jargon is part ceremonial robe, part false beard.

Deep down, you see, I long to be arcane, esoteric. I would love to confound people with their own language.

Modernism: the books are as hard to understand as life itself.

Just look around, in life, there's people who want to date people who look like themselves, and there are people who are just looking for a good fit. And a lot of times, a good fit is someone different than yourself. I'm not one to get too hung up on outside appearances. I find people attractive for more subtle reasons than just the way they look.

That's what the world is like: people talk as if they knew everything, but ifyou dare to ask a question, they don't know anything.

Observermanship is the art of giving the impression that you are with it even though you don't know Latin very well.

I had to sit in front of all these people, and act like I knew what I was doing. I faked my way through it pretty well.

Philosophy is by its nature something esoteric, neither made for the mob nor capable of being prepared for the mob.

Pretences go a great way with men that take fair words and magisterial looks for current payment.

There are a lot of self important people who make you believe they're artistes and high on the intelligence quotient and I've sat down and listened to them and just been bored.

The Geometer has the special privilege to carry out, by abstraction, all constructions by means of the intellect.

Rule of thumb: if you think something is clever and sophisticated beware-it is probably self-indulgence.

Quand celui à qui l'on parle ne comprend pas et celui qui parle ne se comprend pas, c'est de la métaphysique When he to whom a person speaks does not understand, and he who speaks does not understand himself, that is metaphysics.

I like to use big words so people will think I know what I'm talking about.

You're a genius! And the proof is that both common people and intellectuals find your work completely incoherent.

There aren't twelve-hundred people in the world who understand pictures. The others pretend and don't care.