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← ExitThe Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I

Reading language

[On Voltaire.]

... [they] amuse the imagination and make truth a pleasure for it that keeps it from going astray.

Mr. Molé was right when he said to me: “You grow too attached to what you do.” (on Tuesday, July 12, in Paris.)

Monday, August 1.

Anniversary. My mother!!

August […]3.

False shame (you say) and false honor?

August […]4.

Plutarch. His influence on French literature from Amyot’s translation under Charles IX to the reign of Louis XIII.

“It is better to speak poetically, like Plato.” Indeed, in higher metaphysics there are many things that cannot be well said unless they are said poetically, to speak as Plutarch does.

August 5.

Here is what is remarkable: Plutarch, in interpreting Plato, is clearer than he is and yet has less light and gives the soul less joy.

Intelligence (principle). This word is very easily understood. Unless one obscures the notion of it with words. For words, given to man to make things clear, are often suited to confusing everything.

This time... nevertheless has beauty.

August 6.

The pride that envies them (distinctions) is more pride than the pride that aspires to them.

August 7.

“Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire sciat alter.” Yes, for glory; but not for happiness.

Neither do all nightingales sing equally well, nor all roses smell equally sweet.

We lack neither matter nor form, but constancy. The mind fully illuminated... accustomed to light, a slight cloud obscures it, troubles it, soon wearies its attention, always lively but short-lived.

T76.The translator supplies [they] for the absent subject of the finite plural amusent. Both later instances of it refer to the imagination; the source does not identify what amuses it.

T77.The Tuesday, July 12 date remains inside the paragraph as the circumstance of the remembered remark. The entry itself has no separate date heading.

T332.The parenthetical date reports the recalled conversation and remains inside the paragraph; it is not assigned as the entry’s date.

T78.The text does not state which anniversary is meant. No birthday or date of death is supplied. Both exclamation marks remain.

T79.False shame follows the established sense of mauvaise honte as shame without good reason; the Académie’s 1798 entry faux equates fausse honte and mauvaise honte. Repeating false with honor preserves Joubert’s repeated adjective mauvais while allowing his question to challenge the quality of honor itself.

T334.The left edge damages the day numeral. Only the surviving fragment is transcribed; no missing leading digit or complete date is inferred.

T335.The left edge damages the day numeral. Only the surviving fragment is transcribed; no missing leading digit or complete date is inferred.

T80.Both references to speaking remain distinct: the quoted comparison with Plato and the closing reference to Plutarch’s expression. The two printed spellings poétiquement and poëtiquement appear unchanged in the French; the English repeats poetically.

T81.Clearer and less light remain distinct. Joubert can find an interpreter easier to understand while attributing greater illumination and joy to Plato himself.

T82.The parenthetical principle is retained without adding a governing theory or a personal subject. The sentence beginning Unless remains separated from the preceding assertion.

T83.Time leaves temps broad. The fragment does not establish whether an age, a period, or another sense is intended.

T84.More pride preserves the unusual comparison of the noun orgueil with itself. The parenthesis identifies the distinctions envied or sought, without moving them into the first pronoun’s place.

T85.The Latin means: Your knowing is nothing unless another knows that you know. Compare Persius, Satire I, line 27, where the Latin text has hoc before sciat and presents the thought as a question. Joubert’s printed quotation omits hoc and ends with a period; its wording is retained. The distinction between glory and happiness is Joubert’s reply.

T86.Matter and form retain the paired philosophical and artistic terms. The dislocated construction beginning The mind follows the French interruption rather than supplying a new explanatory verb. Lively but short-lived describes attention.