Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I
Complete Notebooks · French with an independent English translation.
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French Page · Branch 2445 of 3781
[LOCKE] · Entry 2445
French
p. 4889[…] mars.
Hélas; tous les cerveaux sont creux et tout songeur est songe-creux.
Pag. 265. « n’ont prêché que leurs propres pensées ». En effet, pour réussir, il faut prêcher des pensées propres à devenir celles de tout le monde.
Pag. 283. Tout lui est bon en citation : N.N.N. l’abbé Pluquet, l’abbé Barruel, Turpin même, etc.
* Plaisant bel esprit que Calvin. C’est Erasme qui l’étoit. — C’est du fanatisme, mais ce n’est pas un fanatisme de volonté, c’est un fanatisme de conviction. Conviction qu’il se fait lui-même à lui-même.
Pag. 307. Celui-ci par exemple auroit bien mauvaise grâce de reprocher à Homère ses répétitions.
Pag. 379. Il est vrai en effet que l’amour réunit le volontaire au forcé. Platon eût aimé ces idées et ces expressions. L’auteur réunit souvent des idées aimables et platoniques au ton sèchement dogmatique, impérieux, austère, affirmatif et tyrannique des raisonneurs des écholes modernes.
Il a toujours sur ce mot des développemens presque indécens... [illisible.]
Pag. 382. Sur la liberté. Il croit prouver parce qu’il se prouve; mais on ne prouve pas par la force des mots, à moins qu’elle ne soit en même temps force des choses, ou du moins force de la pensée qu’on a des choses. (Nota. cela bᵒ).
Ses définitions et les choses lui paroissent absolument identiques,
partout où il y a conséquence, il croit trouver vérité.
Il n’est pas pointilleux en objections, mais en preuves. Ses propositions sont souvent plus claires et plus vraies que ses preuves.
On ne peut pas être plus esclave qu’il ne l’est de ses propres idées, surtout dans ces passages où il parle de liberté.
Il donne à ses expressions un rigorisme de sens qui tirannise l’attention.
Que disoient-ils qu’il ne scait pas écrire? Il scait écrire certes, et écrire parfaitement; mais il ne scait pas plaire.
Il y a pour l’art de plaire en raisonnant une espèce de poétique.
* On n’a jamais approfondi à ce point la question du catholicisme et de la monarchie.
* Amour. Il semble toujours parler, si on prend garde à ses explications, non de l’amour qui fait qu’on aime, mais de l’amour qui fait qu’on est amoureux; ce qui est assez singulier dans un livre et de la part d’un homme voués à la défense d’une religion dont le caractère est d’être austère autant qu’aimante.
Pag. 403. [408!]. Le rétorsion seroit si aisée, mais il s’y expose avec une sécurité vraiment aveugle.
Pag. 410. Et il vient de faire mention de l’Italie! (Vid. loc ) Non seulement il veut des hommes très aimans, mais des hommes très amoureux, et il semble ne regarder comme aimans que ceux qui sont amoureux. Cette doctrine est peu d’accord avec l’austérité des docteurs catholiques et même avec la saine phisiologie de l’homme moral, car l’expérience nous apprend que ce sont les amours réprimés qui rendent l’âme très tendre.
Pag. 410. Va t’en à la Chine et lis Hao-Kiou-Koan, tu verras mieux.
* Dire, par exemple, que tout amour, et même celui de Dieu, se produit nécessairement par l’action des sens, c’est abuser des termes. Il veut dire par des actes ou actions; mais alors le mot sens n’est pas convenable. Mieux auroit valu dire par les membres, qui eût été ridicule, mais plus exact. Le mot sens s’entend de ce qui est sensuel.
Pag. 419. La société en général (dit-il) est Dieu, l’Homme et la propriété. Il fait donc de la propriété un être, une personne. Encore un abbus de mots.
Mais l’abbus est bien relevé par ce qui suit : « ainsi, (dit-il), un peuple constitué doit avoir l’amour de Dieu, l’amour des hommes et le mépris de la propriété. » pag. 421.
Pag. 437. Il ne faut pas « dépasser la perfection ».
* Oracles, et les reliques?
* Très sociale (dit-il) « parce que les devoirs ne peuvent en être bien remplis qu’en société ». Très bien remarqué.
* Il répète ou plutôt récite etc. Mais il semble que par là même le catholique isolé, séparé de la société, auroit moins de ressources pour conserver sa religion que le calviniste dont l’auteur dit lui-même que, pour pratiquer la sienne, il n’a besoin que de Dieu et de la sienne.
* On reprochoit aux révolutionnaires de sacrifier les citoyens à la patrie; et celui-ci ne sacrifie t’il pas un peu trop le membre au corps, l’individu à la famille, la famille à la société, etc.?
J. V. pour tous, mais aussi pour le petit nombre et pour chacun.
* Il y a bien du gentilhomme dans tout cela.
* Tant de mépris pour les autres religions en amène l’intolérance et insensiblement la persécution. — Qui empêcheroit de voir dans toutes les religions autant de cercles d’inégale grandeur, mais concentriques?
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I: [LOCKE]
p. 4890March […].
Alas; all brains are hollow, and every dreamer is a hollow dreamer.
Page 265. “preached only their own thoughts.” Indeed, to succeed, one must preach thoughts fit to become everyone’s.
Page 283. Anything will serve him as a quotation: N.N.N. the abbé Pluquet, the abbé Barruel, even Turpin, etc.
* A fine wit, Calvin! It was Erasmus who was one.—It is fanaticism, but not a fanaticism of will; it is a fanaticism of conviction. A conviction he makes himself for himself.
Page 307. This one, for example, would have very ill grace to reproach Homer for his repetitions.
Page 379. It is indeed true that love joins the voluntary to the forced. Plato would have loved these ideas and these expressions. The author often joins amiable and platonic ideas to the dryly dogmatic, imperious, austere, affirmative, and tyrannical tone of the reasoners of the modern schools.
On this word he always offers almost indecent elaborations... [illegible.]
Page 382. On liberty. He thinks he proves because he proves to himself; but one does not prove by the force of words unless it is at the same time the force of things, or at least the force of one’s thought of things. (Nota. that bᵒ).
His definitions and the things seem to him absolutely identical,
wherever there is consequence, he thinks he finds truth.
He is not punctilious in objections, but in proofs. His propositions are often clearer and truer than his proofs.
One cannot be more a slave than he is to his own ideas, especially in those passages where he speaks of liberty.
He gives his expressions a rigorism of meaning that tyrannizes attention.
Why were they saying he does not know how to write? Certainly he knows how to write, and to write perfectly; but he does not know how to please.
There is a kind of poetics for the art of pleasing while reasoning.
* The question of Catholicism and monarchy has never been explored so deeply.
* Love. If one attends to his explanations, he always seems to speak not of the love that makes one love, but of the love that makes one be in love; which is rather singular in a book and on the part of a man devoted to defending a religion whose character is to be as austere as it is loving.
Page 403. [408!]. The turning of his argument against him would be so easy, yet he exposes himself to it with a truly blind sense of security.
Page 410. And he has just mentioned Italy! (See the passage) Not only does he want very loving men, but men very much in love, and he seems to regard as loving only those who are in love. This doctrine is little in accord with the austerity of the Catholic doctors, or even with the sound physiology of moral man, for experience teaches us that it is repressed loves that make the soul very tender.
Page 410. Go off to China and read Hao-Kiou-Koan; you will see better.
* To say, for example, that all love, even the love of God, necessarily comes about through the action of the senses is to abuse terms. He means through acts or actions; but then the word senses is unsuitable. It would have been better to say through the limbs, which would have been ridiculous, but more exact. The word senses is understood to refer to what is sensual.
Page 419. Society in general (he says) is God, Man, and property. He thus makes property a being, a person. Another abuse of words.
But the abuse is well brought out by what follows: “thus, (he says), a constituted people must have love of God, love of men, and contempt for property.” page 421.
Page 437. One must not “go beyond perfection.”
* Oracles, and relics?
* Very social (he says) “because its duties can be well fulfilled only in society.” Very well observed.
* He repeats, or rather recites, etc. But it seems that, by that very fact, the isolated Catholic, separated from society, would have fewer resources for preserving his religion than the Calvinist, of whom the author himself says that, to practice his own, he needs only God and his own.
* The revolutionaries were reproached for sacrificing citizens to the fatherland; and does this one not sacrifice a little too much the member to the body, the individual to the family, the family to society, etc.?
J. V. for all, but also for the few and for each.
* There is much of the nobleman in all this.
* So much contempt for other religions brings intolerance of them and imperceptibly persecution.—Who would prevent us from seeing in all religions so many circles of unequal size, but concentric?
Socrates
Reading The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume I · [LOCKE] · Entry 2445
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Joubert’s notebooks return to the work of thinking and writing, the demands of friendship, and questions of faith, beauty and conduct. This edition pairs the French with a new English translation, preserving the order of the chosen source and the unfinished character of its fragments. Dates and source references allow readers to follow a thought through time or return to its printed context.
Historical Text and Translation
The French text follows André Beaunier’s 1938 edition of Les Carnets de Joseph Joubert, published by Gallimard from Joubert’s autograph manuscripts. Volume I presents the entries on printed pages 32–475. French and English are aligned paragraph by paragraph, retaining the source order, printed dates and page references so readers can return to the facsimile.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this new English translation directly from the French, preserving Joubert’s distinctions, recurring images, ambiguities and unfinished thoughts. Translator’s notes clarify wording, references and uncertain readings: Essential keeps notes that help explain a passage, while All includes technical detail. Annotations from the 1938 source edition remain distinct from the new translator’s notes.
Rights
The linked facsimile records identify the French source as public domain in the United States. The new English translation and editorial notes are © 2026 Diotimos, with source annotations and new editorial contributions credited separately. This edition pairs the complete French notebooks with an independent English translation, preserving the distinction between Joubert’s text and its accompanying notes.