Joseph Joubert on Truth

"It is above all the language for expressing these truths that have not yet been found."

"To seek the truth. But, as you are seeking and as you are waiting, what will you do, what will you think, what will you practice, what rules will you follow?"

"You go to truth by way of poetry and I go to poetry by way of truth."

"There is nothing perfectly true for man; I mean in human opinions. Just like there is nothing perfectly round."

"Perhaps it would be true to say that we cannot conceive of anything except what we can see in our minds."

"The mind can only create errors. Truths are not created, they exist; one can only see them, disentangle them, discover them, and expose them."

"When a truth is better conceived through abstraction, use the abstraction; if not, don't."

"Illusions comes from heaven and mistakes come from us."

"Because they know all the words, they think they know all the truths."

"A frightening thing, which is perhaps true: "old men want to survive."

"Illusion or play. Everything agreeable is in them."

"The truth by way of illusion."

"The truth! Only God sees it."

"The truth. They make it consist of nothing they cannot prove. The greatest happiness they find in it is being able to put forth incontestable assertions. This is what they like, and they consider it a sign of prestige, a prerogative, a power, a dignity, etc., a liberation from error."