What do you think?
Rate this book
The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert: A Selection
The elusive French luminary Joseph Joubert is a great explorer of the mind's open spaces. Edited and translated by Paul Auster, this selection from Joubert's notebooks introduces a master of the enigmatic who seeks "to call everything by its true name" while asking us to "remember everything is double." "Joubert speaks in whispers," Auster writes. "One must draw very close to hear what he is saying."
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
14 people are currently reading
956 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Joubert
96 books55 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.
Other authors publishing under this name are:
Joseph Joubert, prêtre catholique et un organiste
Joseph Joubert was a French moralist and essayist, remembered today largely for his Pensées published posthumously.
From the age of 14 Joubert attended a religious college in Toulouse, where he later taught until 1776. In 1778 he went to Paris where he met D'Alembert and Diderot, amongst others, and later became friends with young writer and diplomat Chateaubriand.
He alternated between living in Paris with his friends and life in the privacy of the countryside in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne. He was appointed inspector-general of the University under Napoleon.
Joubert published nothing during his lifetime, but he wrote a copious amount of letters and filled sheets of paper and small notebooks with thoughts about the nature of human existence, literature and other topics, in a poignant, often aphoristic style. After his death his widow entrusted Chateaubriand with these notes, and in 1838, he published a selection titled Recueil des pensées de M. Joubert (Collected Thoughts of Mr. Joubert). More complete editions were to follow, also of Joubert's correspondence.
Somewhat of the Epicurean school of philosophy, Joubert enjoyed even his own suffering as he believed sickness gave subtlety to the soul.
Joubert's works have been translated into numerous languages, into English by Paul Auster, amongst others.
Other authors publishing under this name are:
Joseph Joubert, prêtre catholique et un organiste
Joseph Joubert was a French moralist and essayist, remembered today largely for his Pensées published posthumously.
From the age of 14 Joubert attended a religious college in Toulouse, where he later taught until 1776. In 1778 he went to Paris where he met D'Alembert and Diderot, amongst others, and later became friends with young writer and diplomat Chateaubriand.
He alternated between living in Paris with his friends and life in the privacy of the countryside in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne. He was appointed inspector-general of the University under Napoleon.
Joubert published nothing during his lifetime, but he wrote a copious amount of letters and filled sheets of paper and small notebooks with thoughts about the nature of human existence, literature and other topics, in a poignant, often aphoristic style. After his death his widow entrusted Chateaubriand with these notes, and in 1838, he published a selection titled Recueil des pensées de M. Joubert (Collected Thoughts of Mr. Joubert). More complete editions were to follow, also of Joubert's correspondence.
Somewhat of the Epicurean school of philosophy, Joubert enjoyed even his own suffering as he believed sickness gave subtlety to the soul.
Joubert's works have been translated into numerous languages, into English by Paul Auster, amongst others.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
January 7, 2015
Maurice Blanchot sums up this remarkable collection better than I ever could: “Joubert had his gift. He never wrote a book. He only prepared to write one, resolutely seeking the exact conditions that would allow him to write it. Then he forgot even this plan. More precisely, what he was seeking—this source of writing, this space in which to write, this light to circumscribe in space—demanded of him, affirmed in him inclinations that made him unfit for all ordinary literary work, or made him turn away from it. In this he was one of the first completely modern writers, preferring the center to the sphere, sacrificing results to the discovery of their conditions, and writing not in order to add one book to another but to take command of the point from which it seemed to him all books issued, the point which, once it was found, would relieve him of the need to write any books.”
sampled
January 18, 2025Joubert was a writer who never wrote a book. Instead, he kept personal notebooks that he wrote in with increasing regularity as he grew older. The entries are brief and aphoristic in nature. I think my interest in this type of writing is waning, except maybe for that of Cioran. I probably won't finish this, but I did skip to the end and read the essay by Blanchot, which I found more interesting than a lot of Joubert's thoughts.
January 26, 2024
Sometimes, the best way of conveying complicated philosophical ideas is through fragments, rather than a detailed, extended treatment. And Joseph Joubert, author of The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert: A Selection, says as much when he wrote, "maxims, because what is isolated can be seen better."
Joubert joins Albert Camus, Emile Cioran, Friedrich Nietzsche, Blaise Pascal, and Dag Hammarskjöld in this regard. This book is a keeper, because it is always fun to return to reading philosophical fragments. Here are a couple that impressed me:
Joubert joins Albert Camus, Emile Cioran, Friedrich Nietzsche, Blaise Pascal, and Dag Hammarskjöld in this regard. This book is a keeper, because it is always fun to return to reading philosophical fragments. Here are a couple that impressed me:
Our life is of woven wind.I think the best way of reviewing a book like this is to give examples.
Retreat often into your sphere, rest yourself in your center, plunge yourself into your element: good advice, which must be remembered.
We are afraid of having and showing a small mind and we are not afraid of having and showing a small heart.
The thoughts that come to us are worth more than the ones we seek.
You have searched in vain, you have found nothing but envelopes. Open a hundred, open a thousand, you will always be stopped before opening the last. You think you have touched the essence when you take off the outer skins.
Read
June 18, 2018Short, aphoristic pensees that -- unlike so many aphoristic works -- actually provide room for reflection, and don't sound like shitty motivational-speaker quotes repeated in the PowerPoint presentations of HR directors around the world. Rather, they read as they were probably intended, something like an Enlightenment philosophe's Twitter feed. Like the best witticisms of Nietzsche, Adorno, or Benjamin, this is something that sticks around in your head for days. I'm guessing the only reason that Joubert wrote like this is because he couldn’t assemble it all into a grand work, as was to be expected in those days, but I'm all the happier it was published like this.
November 23, 2007
"truth. to surround it with figures and colors, so that it can be seen."
this is exquisite and enchanting. a single page from these notebooks is more thought-provoking than the entirety of most novels being published today.
this is exquisite and enchanting. a single page from these notebooks is more thought-provoking than the entirety of most novels being published today.
August 4, 2021
This is actually, by far, my favorite book of all time—at least as far as notebooks go. There's a distinct stamp that easily distinguishes Joseph Joubert's unmistakable prose: a well-mixed blend of crispness, incisiveness, and tenderness that I feel is completely unique to him, and which likely is perfectly reflective of his character. Just as remarkable is his incredibly well-honed intuition for beauty:
"But the voice is not made only of air, but of air modeled by us, impregnated by our heat and enveloped like some kind of skin by the vapor of our inner atmosphere accompanied b y some emanation that gives it a certain shape and certain properties capable of producing effects upon other minds." (Joubert 48)I think if you love beauty, and you want to wander within a world made of air, elegance and a sharp but gently wielded wit, then this is a 'must-read-before-you-die' kind of book. Cannot speak more highly of it.
April 13, 2015
“Those for whom the world is not enough: saints, conquerors, poets, and all lovers of books” (126), or maybe some combination of the above, but let’s just assume it’s the last that’s brought us here. The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert is a selection of entries from Joseph Joubert’s journals, only published after his death. The translator, Paul Auster, sums up Joubert’s plight in a single sentence: “He was something far more oblique and challenging, a writer who spent his whole life preparing himself for a work that never came to be written, a writer of the highest rank who paradoxically never produced a book” (ix). I went in hoping for something in line with the melancholy and wanderings of Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet but Notebooks is a different animal. It’s a book that has me puzzled, wondering as to where the rest of the book went, and what I was missing.
Notebooks has that very definite sense of personality, a human imprint in its pages. It has it’s insights, and small moments of beauty. And although its resistance to ever being realized as a cohesive text has a mystique and appeal, it was a bit diffuse for my tastes. One of the entries simply reads “Memory and rhythm” (98). There is nothing to ‘get’ here, but why even include something like this? Notebooks has quite a few of these lines that dead end at either a simple emotional gauge, or before becoming something more significant than a broad point of meditation.
And all this lead me to feel as though Joubert’s work is perilously caught between a few things. On the one hand you have his depth, subtly, imagination, and on the other you have this lack of context to contend with, tempered by (maybe just my own) skepticism for all things that aspire for profundity, and their reappropriation as motivational. The internet has made it difficult to distinguish between depth of character, and the desire to be seen as such, not to mention anyone questioning said depth of character, thereby promulgating their own. (See? Am I doing it now?! (For reference, see: Jaden Smith’s twitter feed, the comment section of any Humans of New York post, and probably our own facebook feeds)) This is all to say it would be easy to poke fun at Notebooks if read while wearing our hip modern glasses of cynicism, but it, the book, is not without value.
Were I entirely honest here I’d probably give Joubert’s Notebooks 3 stars, but I’m adding an extra star for this being a quiet, personable volume, that’s still warm, 191+ years on. It’s a book I want to like. Joubert was a writer that merely cracked doors for us to peak out through, leaving us to guess as to what special thing he was seeing.
My prescription: Read a handful of pages daily, and pair it with a more substantial text. Apply when you want something light, but also worth thinking on.
Notebooks has that very definite sense of personality, a human imprint in its pages. It has it’s insights, and small moments of beauty. And although its resistance to ever being realized as a cohesive text has a mystique and appeal, it was a bit diffuse for my tastes. One of the entries simply reads “Memory and rhythm” (98). There is nothing to ‘get’ here, but why even include something like this? Notebooks has quite a few of these lines that dead end at either a simple emotional gauge, or before becoming something more significant than a broad point of meditation.
And all this lead me to feel as though Joubert’s work is perilously caught between a few things. On the one hand you have his depth, subtly, imagination, and on the other you have this lack of context to contend with, tempered by (maybe just my own) skepticism for all things that aspire for profundity, and their reappropriation as motivational. The internet has made it difficult to distinguish between depth of character, and the desire to be seen as such, not to mention anyone questioning said depth of character, thereby promulgating their own. (See? Am I doing it now?! (For reference, see: Jaden Smith’s twitter feed, the comment section of any Humans of New York post, and probably our own facebook feeds)) This is all to say it would be easy to poke fun at Notebooks if read while wearing our hip modern glasses of cynicism, but it, the book, is not without value.
Were I entirely honest here I’d probably give Joubert’s Notebooks 3 stars, but I’m adding an extra star for this being a quiet, personable volume, that’s still warm, 191+ years on. It’s a book I want to like. Joubert was a writer that merely cracked doors for us to peak out through, leaving us to guess as to what special thing he was seeing.
My prescription: Read a handful of pages daily, and pair it with a more substantial text. Apply when you want something light, but also worth thinking on.
January 13, 2008
For years I have been encountering aphorisms and comments by Joubert in books of quotations. Then I discovered this slim volume, which represents the full range of his published work, in Penn Books (one of the great book-shopping treasures of NYC, a small bookstore in Penn Station, in the LIRR concourse, that has a surprisingly robust selection of books, all the usual disposable commute and travel bestsellers but wonders like this.) “Are you listening to the ones who keep quiet?” ‘The heart must walk ahead of the mind, and indulgence ahead of the truth.” “Let’s go; and follow your mistake.” “Silence. –Joys of silence.—Thoughts must be born from the soul and words from silence. –An attentive silence.” Great job translating and introducing the text by Paul Auster.
January 17, 2016
Read this in less than six hours and it was amazing. I felt like I was reading a book of wisdoms by a prophet or a founder of a religion, but it's even better because it isn't! And how tragic is it to think that Joubert never got to writing his great novel. His notebooks give a taste of what the world could have gained from his writing, and it's a bitter feeling knowing I'll never read what he had intended to write.
Joubert's notebooks are full of love, illusion, and wisdom. A must read for anyone who wants to write anything! (I'd put this hand in hand with Elements of Style)
Joubert's notebooks are full of love, illusion, and wisdom. A must read for anyone who wants to write anything! (I'd put this hand in hand with Elements of Style)
December 14, 2020
Most of these are not aphorisms, but this is also not a journal. I’m not sure what this writing is, but I enjoy it.
July 23, 2025
~ This review was originally posted on bookco.org. URL: https://bookco.org/blog/jouberts-style ~
Joubert’s Style: An Emulative Review
Joubert’s aesthetic is proto-explicated in his Pensées, and yet they are saturated with it. They are the condensation of the ethereal element in thoughts of life.
—
Frequent motifs include colors, clouds, dew, diamonds, light, lightness, distance, air and other clearings.
—
Ethereal. But not detached from life. Not intentionally, anyhow. As they have been presented in English—most recently by NYRB (2005), whose edition has done nothing to revise the typos1 in that previously printed by North Point Press (1983), and committed the still worse crime of omitting Maurice Blanchot’s wonderful essay “Joubert et L’espace” [“Joubert and Space”] made more bold by quoting it on the back cover, not to mention Paul Auster’s explicit reference to it in the new introduction—these “notebooks” are in fact excerpts, “a selection” ripped like fruit from the contextual tree of their original writing, full of biographical details that have been cherry-picked and rinsed for our consumption.
—
Distillation of a life.2
—
It is by imagining the branches, if not by directly reading them, that we restore the organic, humanly rooted quality of Joubert’s musings, that a hint of the earth from which they sprang might be felt.
—
Imagination. Perhaps bearing the branch in mind is sufficient for appreciating its culminating fruit. Joubert’s selected thoughts, though select, may capture the best among his writings, and in fact their dismembered presentation pays tribute to the idea for his hypothetical project “On Man”. In his words: “I would like thoughts to follow one another in a book like stars in the sky, with order, with harmony, but effortlessly and at intervals, without touching, without mingling; and nevertheless not without finding their place, harmonizing, arranging themselves.”3 Had he set out on this project in earnest, these excerpts make for the closest thing to its draft that we can salvage.
—
What is gained from the excerpts of a notebook curated to hint at the ideas that might have been presented in a book which has only been dreamed of?
—
It speaks to the art and condition of writing itself. “One must write with effort in centuries of bad taste.” “Beautiful works. Genius begins them, but labor alone finishes them.” “There are only two kinds of beautiful writing, that which has a great fullness of sound, meaning, soul, warmth, and life, and that which has a great transparency.” “In order for a style to be considered good, it must, so to speak, detach itself from the paper…” “What we write with difficulty is written with more care, engraves itself more deeply.” “The silence of the pen and its advantages.” “For an expression to be beautiful it must say more than is necessary while nevertheless saying precisely what it must,” “poetic vapor [...] resolved in prose.”4
—
(2) It gives credence to the fleeting yet potent insights and inspirations we experience throughout the mundane, “...this poetry of thought.” Not that every passing thought is valuable in itself; rather it puts the value back into thinking with effort: “To understand a beautiful or great thought perhaps requires the same amount of time it takes to have it, to conceive of it.” “Floods of passions. It would nevertheless be better to raise the dikes for them.” “Then there comes into languages a facility and an overabundance that, if you want to become a great writer, you must oppose with difficulties, with a sure taste, a mediated choice. When you find a torrent, obstacles must be placed in it.” Finally, thinking is a process natural to us, and one we should embrace: “The thoughts that come to us are worth more than the ones we seek.”5
—
(1) and (2) together make this lesson: one can be a writer without writing a novel or other lengthy writing project. The skill applied and the beauty wrought need not be spelled out amidst the drama of imaginary characters, nor in the overlong detailings of one’s biography. Indeed it is a valuable art in and of itself, and perhaps one we could all exercise more: the art of aphorizing. Refining one’s thoughts into aphorisms requires a critical mind that can prune the excesses of thought while preserving their essence in terse words. Mental bonsai. Likewise do they take after nature6, whose raw content we must be open to and submit for there to be anything to refine. Such expressions are beautified nature, and they are valuable beyond this. If we more often speak with the clarity and concision7 of aphorisms, we can be truer to ourselves and others, and aspire closer still to that ideal communication. “—maxims, because what is isolated can be seen better.” “Of what must be said and what must not be said. The importance of knowing.”8
—
“Those thoughts that come to us suddenly and that are not yet ours”9 become ours when we apply the thoughtful mind and skillful hand of a writer such as Joubert. This is not the professional writer of any trade, but the composer of a life’s meaning, whose only object is to grasp and commit to, respectfully, “Thoughts that are light, clear, distinct, finished; and words that resemble their thoughts.”10
—
Perhaps most importantly, he reminds you to find the quiet and to give yourself the space to discover the light of these chanced ideas and the time to hone your thought craft. “If you want to think well, to write well, to act well, first make a ‘place’ for yourself, a ‘true place.’ Because we lack true places, we put our thoughts outside the true light and our conduct outside order.”11 A holy space and spiritual time, no matter how brief each respite, are needed for the work of contemplation, by which we weave the winds of our lives.12 “Retreat often into your sphere, rest yourself in your center, plunge yourself into your element: good advice, which must be remembered.”13
—
“All reflection is art.”14 So reflect on your life and become the craftsman of your own art. “The soul speaks to itself in parables.”15 So speak to yourself, and in doing so find the terse story that concentrates your life’s meaning into a song. Even if you do not sing, be like the aeolian harp16 and always know your beauty by your potential for it.
—
Remain open to the winds, that they may pluck your truth, which you persistently tune. “To seek the truth. But, as you are seeking and as you are waiting, what will you do, what will you think, what will you practice, what rules must you follow?”17
Joubert’s Style: An Emulative Review
Joubert’s aesthetic is proto-explicated in his Pensées, and yet they are saturated with it. They are the condensation of the ethereal element in thoughts of life.
—
Frequent motifs include colors, clouds, dew, diamonds, light, lightness, distance, air and other clearings.
—
Ethereal. But not detached from life. Not intentionally, anyhow. As they have been presented in English—most recently by NYRB (2005), whose edition has done nothing to revise the typos1 in that previously printed by North Point Press (1983), and committed the still worse crime of omitting Maurice Blanchot’s wonderful essay “Joubert et L’espace” [“Joubert and Space”] made more bold by quoting it on the back cover, not to mention Paul Auster’s explicit reference to it in the new introduction—these “notebooks” are in fact excerpts, “a selection” ripped like fruit from the contextual tree of their original writing, full of biographical details that have been cherry-picked and rinsed for our consumption.
—
Distillation of a life.2
—
It is by imagining the branches, if not by directly reading them, that we restore the organic, humanly rooted quality of Joubert’s musings, that a hint of the earth from which they sprang might be felt.
—
Imagination. Perhaps bearing the branch in mind is sufficient for appreciating its culminating fruit. Joubert’s selected thoughts, though select, may capture the best among his writings, and in fact their dismembered presentation pays tribute to the idea for his hypothetical project “On Man”. In his words: “I would like thoughts to follow one another in a book like stars in the sky, with order, with harmony, but effortlessly and at intervals, without touching, without mingling; and nevertheless not without finding their place, harmonizing, arranging themselves.”3 Had he set out on this project in earnest, these excerpts make for the closest thing to its draft that we can salvage.
—
What is gained from the excerpts of a notebook curated to hint at the ideas that might have been presented in a book which has only been dreamed of?
—
It speaks to the art and condition of writing itself. “One must write with effort in centuries of bad taste.” “Beautiful works. Genius begins them, but labor alone finishes them.” “There are only two kinds of beautiful writing, that which has a great fullness of sound, meaning, soul, warmth, and life, and that which has a great transparency.” “In order for a style to be considered good, it must, so to speak, detach itself from the paper…” “What we write with difficulty is written with more care, engraves itself more deeply.” “The silence of the pen and its advantages.” “For an expression to be beautiful it must say more than is necessary while nevertheless saying precisely what it must,” “poetic vapor [...] resolved in prose.”4
—
(2) It gives credence to the fleeting yet potent insights and inspirations we experience throughout the mundane, “...this poetry of thought.” Not that every passing thought is valuable in itself; rather it puts the value back into thinking with effort: “To understand a beautiful or great thought perhaps requires the same amount of time it takes to have it, to conceive of it.” “Floods of passions. It would nevertheless be better to raise the dikes for them.” “Then there comes into languages a facility and an overabundance that, if you want to become a great writer, you must oppose with difficulties, with a sure taste, a mediated choice. When you find a torrent, obstacles must be placed in it.” Finally, thinking is a process natural to us, and one we should embrace: “The thoughts that come to us are worth more than the ones we seek.”5
—
(1) and (2) together make this lesson: one can be a writer without writing a novel or other lengthy writing project. The skill applied and the beauty wrought need not be spelled out amidst the drama of imaginary characters, nor in the overlong detailings of one’s biography. Indeed it is a valuable art in and of itself, and perhaps one we could all exercise more: the art of aphorizing. Refining one’s thoughts into aphorisms requires a critical mind that can prune the excesses of thought while preserving their essence in terse words. Mental bonsai. Likewise do they take after nature6, whose raw content we must be open to and submit for there to be anything to refine. Such expressions are beautified nature, and they are valuable beyond this. If we more often speak with the clarity and concision7 of aphorisms, we can be truer to ourselves and others, and aspire closer still to that ideal communication. “—maxims, because what is isolated can be seen better.” “Of what must be said and what must not be said. The importance of knowing.”8
—
“Those thoughts that come to us suddenly and that are not yet ours”9 become ours when we apply the thoughtful mind and skillful hand of a writer such as Joubert. This is not the professional writer of any trade, but the composer of a life’s meaning, whose only object is to grasp and commit to, respectfully, “Thoughts that are light, clear, distinct, finished; and words that resemble their thoughts.”10
—
Perhaps most importantly, he reminds you to find the quiet and to give yourself the space to discover the light of these chanced ideas and the time to hone your thought craft. “If you want to think well, to write well, to act well, first make a ‘place’ for yourself, a ‘true place.’ Because we lack true places, we put our thoughts outside the true light and our conduct outside order.”11 A holy space and spiritual time, no matter how brief each respite, are needed for the work of contemplation, by which we weave the winds of our lives.12 “Retreat often into your sphere, rest yourself in your center, plunge yourself into your element: good advice, which must be remembered.”13
—
“All reflection is art.”14 So reflect on your life and become the craftsman of your own art. “The soul speaks to itself in parables.”15 So speak to yourself, and in doing so find the terse story that concentrates your life’s meaning into a song. Even if you do not sing, be like the aeolian harp16 and always know your beauty by your potential for it.
—
Remain open to the winds, that they may pluck your truth, which you persistently tune. “To seek the truth. But, as you are seeking and as you are waiting, what will you do, what will you think, what will you practice, what rules must you follow?”17
May 1, 2024
I have this book on my shelf at home for many years and often page through its timeless observations that fit in any century. Really my review here is more to honor the translator, the great novelist Paul Auster who died today and who produced wonderful novels, essays opening insights into creative French authors and.... translations. A true artist.
August 17, 2023
Forty percent of the entries touch on God or 'the soul' and are thus predictably vacuous, another 40% are so short that they cannot be dignified by calling them enigmatic, of the remainder maybe 3 % were strikingly good. Such are books of aphorisms.
August 9, 2013
like a 19th century celebrity twitter feed
October 11, 2024
Who recommended this book to me: Lee Klein
Who would I recommend this book? Those who love quotes, and perhaps have some interest in the minds of persons around the era of French Revolution. Plus perhaps fans of Paul Auster.
This selection of quotes from a 1938 collection, meant at least at first to be ideas for a book (never written), have been chosen by Paul Auster from the notebooks Joubert left behind. The notebooks are from c.1783 to 1824 when Joubert died, having had a very interesting life but varying health. Some year’s selections are long, but grow eventually less towards the end.
Well like by his peers, some bits did end up being shared by them, but otherwise he remained quite unknown for a long while; even now many don’t know about him. (Auster found about him in 1971, and writes the introduction here.)
I’ll put some of the shorter quotes in here, but I listed many many others as I made notes for the review:
My ideas! It is the house for lodging them that costs me so much to build.
Thought forms in the soul in the same way clouds form in the air.
A drop of light is worth more than an ocean of darkness: is worth more, I say, be it given or received.
But the idea of the nest in the birds mind, where does it come from?
The great inconvenience of new books is that they prevent us from reading old books.
Children. Need models more than critics.
I feel the almond in the shell, the water in the earth, the fire in the stone.
Nothing is better than justified enthusiasm.
…Pleasure of being seen from afar.
I found this book a quick read, very visually rich, and it gives you a great view into a mind of a very cultured person of that time (not bad looking either, if you check the Wiki). Of course, if I read this book slower, it would feel probably even better, maybe the book could even inspire some writers with the ideas and images. Worth reading even if you find it not completely essential.
Who would I recommend this book? Those who love quotes, and perhaps have some interest in the minds of persons around the era of French Revolution. Plus perhaps fans of Paul Auster.
This selection of quotes from a 1938 collection, meant at least at first to be ideas for a book (never written), have been chosen by Paul Auster from the notebooks Joubert left behind. The notebooks are from c.1783 to 1824 when Joubert died, having had a very interesting life but varying health. Some year’s selections are long, but grow eventually less towards the end.
Well like by his peers, some bits did end up being shared by them, but otherwise he remained quite unknown for a long while; even now many don’t know about him. (Auster found about him in 1971, and writes the introduction here.)
I’ll put some of the shorter quotes in here, but I listed many many others as I made notes for the review:
My ideas! It is the house for lodging them that costs me so much to build.
Thought forms in the soul in the same way clouds form in the air.
A drop of light is worth more than an ocean of darkness: is worth more, I say, be it given or received.
But the idea of the nest in the birds mind, where does it come from?
The great inconvenience of new books is that they prevent us from reading old books.
Children. Need models more than critics.
I feel the almond in the shell, the water in the earth, the fire in the stone.
Nothing is better than justified enthusiasm.
…Pleasure of being seen from afar.
I found this book a quick read, very visually rich, and it gives you a great view into a mind of a very cultured person of that time (not bad looking either, if you check the Wiki). Of course, if I read this book slower, it would feel probably even better, maybe the book could even inspire some writers with the ideas and images. Worth reading even if you find it not completely essential.
May 24, 2025
Es muy difícil juzgar un libro de aforismos: ¿cuántos deben ser excelentes para que el libro también lo sea? En este caso hay una garantía: la selección (y la traducción) son de Paul Auster, y su mirada se nota, hay aforismos que casi parecen suyos: "Me gusta ver dos verdades al mismo tiempo. Toda buena comparación da a la mente esta ventaja". Joubert ha sido un grato descubrimiento, un pensador riguroso, agudo, con un tono melancólico que aumenta en sus últimos años, a veces demasiado preocupado por la religiosidad, pero en general atento a evitar el patetismo. Muchos de los mejores aforismos son sobre la propia escritura: "A veces buscando palabras nos encontramos con ideas; las palabras son el cuerpo de los pensamientos".
November 25, 2025
Rating books is of course always pretty stupid, but this feels like a particularly stupid one to rate. Sort of a commonplace journal, I guess, but mostly just observations -- sort of autobiographical in the way that he's somewhat bearing his soul and values through brief jottings, but very little actual day-to-day. Would be extremely hard to date or place in the chronology of his life (or of history, even) if not for Auster's decision to leave it in its original chronological order -- and the inclusion of a few historical references and personal moments, like Napoleon's ascent to the throne and the birth of Joubert's son. In 1799, what is maybe the only entry that actually dates itself: "Arrival of Bonaparte." A little more common are oblique historical or personal references, like what comes later in the notebook for that year: "Kings no longer know how to rule."
Auster explains some of his editorial decisions in the introduction, the two chief choices being (a) to cut some 90% of Joubert's original notebooks and (b) to preserve the original order (i.e., chronological, as any journal/diary/notebook would be), as opposed to a thematic order that a number of previous re-issues of Joubert's notebooks chose (i.e., ordered by entries about "Time" or "Illusions" or "Space", etc.).
Of course, I haven't read any other edition than this, and probably never will, so I can't really speak on whether this is a successful and/or authentic editorial choice. With that said, the chronology of Joubert's life does feel so crucial to his thoughts -- to mix and match them into different buckets sacrifices so much context and meaning. And it feels like it's trying to make a philosopher or self-help guru out of him, which I don't find sincere. The chronology makes Joubert more confounding -- it gives you the illusion of context or of being able to trace the trajectory of his thoughts in any real way, which is probably entirely futile given how vague and spacy he seems, but it's nevertheless what makes his work so beautiful and seems to give it real meaning. Just him cutting off comments on Chateaubriand or Plato or metaphysics to announce the birth of his son -- and then immediately to return to metaphysics. His life and history are entirely in the margins, and it leaves you questioning the significance of certain jottings, like how the frequency of his entries greatly decreases after writing this: "When you no longer love what is beautiful, you can no longer write."
Of course, this could also be affect by Auster's other choice, i.e., significantly shortening the original length of the notebooks. I feel far less capable in judging this decision, other than to say two things: (1) that I would not have read this had it been much longer, and (2) that he may be justified by Joubert's own line of reasoning -- "A work of genius, whether poetic or didactic, is too long if it cannot be read in one day."
With that said, later on in his life: "Tormented by the cursed ambition always to put a whole book in a page, a whole page in a sentence, and this sentence in a word. I am speaking of myself."
Notes, quotes, other shit:
-- "The only way to have friends is to throw everything out the window, to keep your door unlocked, and never to know where you will be sleeping at night." (pg. 3)
-- "In France we seem to like the arts more to judge them than to enjoy them." (pg. 4)
-- "I stayed at home and walked in the little garden to be alone in my joy. Labor was never happier, nursing never less difficult. The child does not seem wicked." (pg. 18)
-- "God is the place where I do not remember the rest." (pg. 26)
-- "Stars more beautiful to the eye than to the telescope that robs them of their illusions." (pg. 39)
-- "But in fact what is my art? What is the name that distinguishes this art from pothers? What end does it propose? What does it produce? What does it give birth to and make exist? What do I pretend to do and what do I want to do in doing it? Is it writing in general, to assure myself of being read? The one ambition of so many people! Is that all I want? Am I no more than a polymath? Or do I have a class of ideas that is easy to label and whose nature, character, merit, and use can be determined? This must be examined attentively, at great length, until I know the answer." (pg. 53)
-- "Everyone makes and has need of making a world other than the one he sees." (pg. 69)
--"If prayer does not change our destiny, it changes our feelings -- which is no less useful." (pg. 70)
-- "No, I am not angry with myself, but I am angry with books." (pg. 75) Very Emma Bovary coded
-- "From this day forward, to give up Locke, and to agree never to read another word he has written." (pg. 78)
-- "Children are severe. Why." (pg. 103)
-- "A person who is never duped cannot be a friend." (pg. 113)
-- "Those who never back down love themselves more than they love the truth." (pg. 117)
-- "All religions = all women." (pg. 126) Whatever the hell this means!
-- "Those for whom the world is not enough: saints, conquerors, poets, and all lovers of books." (pg. 126)
-- "Necessity can make a doubtful action innocent, but it cannot make it commendable." (pg. 129)
-- "Egregie fallitur. He is wrong, but nobly, intelligently, with grace, with spirit, with wisdom and much beauty." (pg. 141)
-- "One must die lovable (if one can)." (pg. 150) Ivan Ilych, take notes
Auster explains some of his editorial decisions in the introduction, the two chief choices being (a) to cut some 90% of Joubert's original notebooks and (b) to preserve the original order (i.e., chronological, as any journal/diary/notebook would be), as opposed to a thematic order that a number of previous re-issues of Joubert's notebooks chose (i.e., ordered by entries about "Time" or "Illusions" or "Space", etc.).
Of course, I haven't read any other edition than this, and probably never will, so I can't really speak on whether this is a successful and/or authentic editorial choice. With that said, the chronology of Joubert's life does feel so crucial to his thoughts -- to mix and match them into different buckets sacrifices so much context and meaning. And it feels like it's trying to make a philosopher or self-help guru out of him, which I don't find sincere. The chronology makes Joubert more confounding -- it gives you the illusion of context or of being able to trace the trajectory of his thoughts in any real way, which is probably entirely futile given how vague and spacy he seems, but it's nevertheless what makes his work so beautiful and seems to give it real meaning. Just him cutting off comments on Chateaubriand or Plato or metaphysics to announce the birth of his son -- and then immediately to return to metaphysics. His life and history are entirely in the margins, and it leaves you questioning the significance of certain jottings, like how the frequency of his entries greatly decreases after writing this: "When you no longer love what is beautiful, you can no longer write."
Of course, this could also be affect by Auster's other choice, i.e., significantly shortening the original length of the notebooks. I feel far less capable in judging this decision, other than to say two things: (1) that I would not have read this had it been much longer, and (2) that he may be justified by Joubert's own line of reasoning -- "A work of genius, whether poetic or didactic, is too long if it cannot be read in one day."
With that said, later on in his life: "Tormented by the cursed ambition always to put a whole book in a page, a whole page in a sentence, and this sentence in a word. I am speaking of myself."
Notes, quotes, other shit:
-- "The only way to have friends is to throw everything out the window, to keep your door unlocked, and never to know where you will be sleeping at night." (pg. 3)
-- "In France we seem to like the arts more to judge them than to enjoy them." (pg. 4)
-- "I stayed at home and walked in the little garden to be alone in my joy. Labor was never happier, nursing never less difficult. The child does not seem wicked." (pg. 18)
-- "God is the place where I do not remember the rest." (pg. 26)
-- "Stars more beautiful to the eye than to the telescope that robs them of their illusions." (pg. 39)
-- "But in fact what is my art? What is the name that distinguishes this art from pothers? What end does it propose? What does it produce? What does it give birth to and make exist? What do I pretend to do and what do I want to do in doing it? Is it writing in general, to assure myself of being read? The one ambition of so many people! Is that all I want? Am I no more than a polymath? Or do I have a class of ideas that is easy to label and whose nature, character, merit, and use can be determined? This must be examined attentively, at great length, until I know the answer." (pg. 53)
-- "Everyone makes and has need of making a world other than the one he sees." (pg. 69)
--"If prayer does not change our destiny, it changes our feelings -- which is no less useful." (pg. 70)
-- "No, I am not angry with myself, but I am angry with books." (pg. 75) Very Emma Bovary coded
-- "From this day forward, to give up Locke, and to agree never to read another word he has written." (pg. 78)
-- "Children are severe. Why." (pg. 103)
-- "A person who is never duped cannot be a friend." (pg. 113)
-- "Those who never back down love themselves more than they love the truth." (pg. 117)
-- "All religions = all women." (pg. 126) Whatever the hell this means!
-- "Those for whom the world is not enough: saints, conquerors, poets, and all lovers of books." (pg. 126)
-- "Necessity can make a doubtful action innocent, but it cannot make it commendable." (pg. 129)
-- "Egregie fallitur. He is wrong, but nobly, intelligently, with grace, with spirit, with wisdom and much beauty." (pg. 141)
-- "One must die lovable (if one can)." (pg. 150) Ivan Ilych, take notes
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 31, 2019
Beautiful but inscrutable. Better read the Blanchot essay first.
June 20, 2020
a book of whispers filled with wisdom that forces you to reflect. absolutely loved it
August 2, 2020
Though not a religious person myself, much truth I find in the thoughts of Joubert, and God in this work can often be substituted with better understandings from our own time.
April 7, 2021
Drivel
November 2, 2024
Rubbing my jaw meditatively upon encountering this standalone entry from 1805:
“Children are people.”
“Children are people.”
April 24, 2025
Short philosophical thoughts that could have been written today.
March 12, 2017
Glorioso. Para aprendérselo de memoria, para vivir dentro de este librito recopilatorio de los apuntes vitales de este escritor que nunca publicó nada pero que sabía de todo y a todos influyó. Es irónico, inteligente. Son cientos de reflexiones sobre la vida, sobre escribir, pensamientos. Habla de sus ilustres amigos, de la sociedad que le rodea. es como un manual de filosofía.
November 7, 2020
"That man has donkey's ears that don't show."
April 30, 2024
On the face of it The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) is a hodgepodge of fragmented sentences. Yet take time to browse and ingest these laconic thoughts and you'll quickly discover a luminous mix of insights and observations on art, philosophy et al. Having said that, we can't get away from the fact that The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) is a hodgepodge of fragmented sentences.
"I will build a temple for the worship of dreams."
"I will build a temple for the worship of dreams."
March 31, 2024
Wisdom is the strength of the weak.
Passions come like a smallpox and disfigure this original beauty.
There are truths that cannot be apprehended in conversation.
Clarity of mind is not given in all centuries.
Psalms. Read them with the intention of praying and you will find them beautiful. Eh! Doesn’t every reading demand a readiness of mind that is special and appropriate to it?
I like Leibnitz’s expression the soul carries the body. And observe that everywhere and in everything, what is subtle carries what is compact; and what is light holds in suspension all that is heavy. Admit it, at least in the sense of – and as the most beautiful conception of the human mind.
- Joseph Joubert
https://withagreenscarf.wordpress.com...
Passions come like a smallpox and disfigure this original beauty.
There are truths that cannot be apprehended in conversation.
Clarity of mind is not given in all centuries.
Psalms. Read them with the intention of praying and you will find them beautiful. Eh! Doesn’t every reading demand a readiness of mind that is special and appropriate to it?
I like Leibnitz’s expression the soul carries the body. And observe that everywhere and in everything, what is subtle carries what is compact; and what is light holds in suspension all that is heavy. Admit it, at least in the sense of – and as the most beautiful conception of the human mind.
- Joseph Joubert
https://withagreenscarf.wordpress.com...
February 27, 2015
Even if half of Joubert's axiomatic ricocheting comes up short or even falls flat, those moments where he fixes beauty and knowledge together are wonderful, and they are unforgettable. Plus, it's important, I think, in a book of aphoristic nature, to be infuriated at least once every few pages; to be consistently disagreeing with the writer, troubling the writer's constructions. That's the point. [Except for the "where there is no God, nothing is sacred" stuff, which was a yawn, but, y'know, product of his time, etc.]
February 16, 2008
I love the big book of French literature translated by Auster back in the early 80s or so, and this was previously included in another book with three translations by as many authors. Now on its own in this NYRB edition, these aphorisms and "deep thoughts" have a fascinating back story and can be read really fast. Perfect.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews