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 50 of 4529
YEAR 1805 · Entry 3831
French
p. 99Les autres écrivains placent leurs pensées devant notre attention. Ceux ci gravent les leurs dans notre souvenir. Ils ont un langage qui est souverainement ami de la mémoire. Et ce n’est pas par un méchanisme, mais si j’ose ainsi dire par sa spiritualité. Les mots, les choses : il sort pour eux des figures des uns, des autres des images.
Une image s’élève de toutes les réalités.
A leurs yeux, les mots ont une figure, des couleurs. Une harmonie en appelle une autre. Cette séparation qui [est] entre leurs paroles est entre leurs pensées. Leurs idées ne s’enchaînent pas, elles se mettent en rapport comme les astres dans le ciel.
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II: YEAR 1805
p. 100Other writers place their thoughts before our attention. These engrave theirs in our memory. They have a language that is supremely a friend to memory. And this is not through a mechanism, but, if I may put it so, through its spirituality. Words, things: for these writers, figures come from the former, images from the latter.
An image rises from all realities.
In their eyes, words have a figure, colors. One harmony calls forth another. This separation that [is] between their words is between their thoughts. Their ideas do not chain themselves together; they enter into relation like the stars in the sky.
Socrates
Reading The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volume II · YEAR 1805 · Entry 3831
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.