From the book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert, Volumes I–II
Joseph Joubert · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordRésignation is a yielding disposition that can reduce suffering through a motive outside one’s own will.
- In JoubertThe comparison calls resignation easier than courage and explains “outside us” as outside our will.
- In this editionThe English translation retains the parenthetic explanation of outside, the conditional comparison of effects, and the contrast between requests for virtue and prosperity.
- A place to beginA motive outside will gives resignation a practical advantage.
- English renderings
- resignation
Meaning
Résignation is a yielding disposition that can reduce suffering through a motive outside one’s own will. It is not simply lack of courage.
Use in the book
The comparison calls resignation easier than courage and explains “outside us” as outside our will. It invites using whichever diminishes ills better. In prayer, resignation qualifies requests for prosperity while virtue is to be asked insistently. A later aphorism gives resignation something sublime and courage merely strength. The different standards—ease, relief and sublimity—should not be collapsed into one scale of moral superiority.
Places to read
- I, p. 153, entry begun p. 152, no. 11, ¶4A motive outside will gives resignation a practical advantage.
- I, p. 187, entry 10, ¶1Prosperity is to be asked with resignation.
- I, p. 300, entry 6, ¶2Resignation is described as sublime rather than only strong.
Translation in this edition
The English translation retains the parenthetic explanation of outside, the conditional comparison of effects, and the contrast between requests for virtue and prosperity. It does not translate resignation as fatalism or complete inactivity when the cited texts do not do so.
Source note
Beaunier 1938, I, pp. 153, 187, 300.