Joseph Roux

“It is a very rare thing for a man of talent to succeed by his talent.”

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

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

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

“When unhappy, one doubts everything; when happy, one doubts nothing.”

“What is love? two souls and one flesh friendship? two bodies and one soul.”

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

“We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.”

“Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite expressions.”

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

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

“Solitude vivifies; isolation kills.”

“Nothing vivifies, and nothing kills, like the emotions.”

“Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.”

“Science is for those who learn, poetry is for those who know.”

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

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