Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II
Complete Notebooks · French with an independent English translation.
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Facing Pages · Branch 2244 of 4529
YEAR 1809 · Entry 6025
French
p. 448726 décembre.
Les mœurs se composent de deux choses : de coutumes et d’habitudes. Les coutumes font les mœurs publiques et les habitudes les mœurs individuelles. Si les mœurs publiques sont bonnes, les mauvaises mœurs individuelles comptent pour peu, parce que la diffamation qui les punit en arrête les inconvéniens; mais quand les mœurs publiques sont mauvaises, les bonnes mœurs particulières qui en sont la censure et quelquefois le correctif, qui sauvent les principes par une sorte de protestation contre le siècle, qui conservent le feu sacré, qui transmettent comme un dépôt les mœurs anciennes; les bonnes mœurs particulières, dis-je, acquièrent une importance extrême.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II: YEAR 1809
p. 4488December 26.
Mores consist of two things: customs and habits. Customs make public mores, and habits individual mores. If public mores are good, bad individual mores count for little, because the disrepute that punishes them checks their harmful effects; but when public mores are bad, good private mores, which are their censure and sometimes their corrective, which save principles by a kind of protest against the age, which preserve the sacred fire, which transmit the old mores as a trust; good private mores, I say, acquire extreme importance.
Socrates
Reading The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II · YEAR 1809 · Entry 6025
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 II continues the notebooks and includes seventy undated pieces. 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.