Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition

Joseph Joubert

The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II

Name: The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II
Author: Joseph Joubert

Complete Notebooks · French with an independent English translation.

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The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume IIYEAR 1823 · Entry 8230

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English Page · Branch 4449 of 4529

YEAR 1823 · Entry 8230

Translator notesBook Mode

French

p. 8897

15 octobre.

L’abbé Galliani. Un œil d’aigle et le vol du hanneton. Et cependant il a raison. On a voulu faire un art compliqué, difficile et phantastique de la politique et de l’éducation qui, pour être excellentes, ne doivent être qu’un développement qui se fait naturellement et partout d’un certain instinct commun à tous les hommes et qu’ils tiennent de la nécessité où ils sont d’apprendre et d’enseigner à commander et à obéir. « Il n’y eut jamais de liberté », dit-il. Non, puisqu’il y eut toujours société. (Mieux dire tout cela.)

The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II: YEAR 1823

p. 8898

October 15.

The abbé Galliani. An eagle’s eye and a cockchafer’s flight. And yet he is right. People have wanted to make a complicated, difficult and fantastic art of politics and education, which, to be excellent, should be only a development that takes place naturally and everywhere of a certain instinct common to all men, and which they derive from their need to learn and teach commanding and obeying. “There was never freedom,” he says. No, since there was always society. (Say all this better.)

T76.The literal Galliani spelling, contrasting creatures, yet, all three qualities, excellent/only, naturally/everywhere and learn/teach/command/obey remain. Fantastic provisionally renders phantastique without importing the modern approving sense. The freedom/society reply and closing self-revision instruction stay in the body. No historical quotation is authenticated; English places its following comma inside the quotation. And which they derive explicitly preserves et qu’ils tiennent, coordinating the relative with common to all men; English supplies the comma before this relation. Both source eut forms are plain, without a certified circumflex. He says chooses a contextual narrative present for dit, whose form also permits a past-simple reading. The complete October 15 date remains; the closing instruction and all text are roman.

T143.The complete 15 and literal Galliani/double l, œil, hanneton and phantastique remain. Color foreground starts il, wrapped que/vent, d’un, la, à and toujours are abraded but identifiable; no extra lexical losses are invented. The feminine plural excellentes and plural doivent refer to the coordinated politics/education, while the development remains singular. The repeated learning/teaching and commanding/obeying relations, all-men phrase and et qu’ils relation remain. No historical identification or quotation authentication is supplied. The source comma follows the liberty quotation’s closing guillemet. Both eut forms are plain, without a certified circumflex; the reporting dit has present/past-simple morphology and is not uniquely dated by its glyphs. The revision instruction remains inside a roman parenthesis with its period.

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.