"Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure. Emotion is easily transferred from the writer to the reader"
About this Quote
Joseph Joubert, the French moralist whose aphorisms were published posthumously by Chateaubriand, sets a demanding but liberating standard for writers. Pleasure is not a frivolous add-on to craft; it is the motor that animates language. When the writer feels energy, curiosity, or delight, cadence sharpens, images brighten, and choices grow precise. The prose carries a pulse. Because emotion travels quickly through tone and rhythm, the writer’s state is not private. It leaks into sentences and reaches the reader intact.
Placed between the late Enlightenment and the dawning Romantic age, Joubert prizes sensibility and sincerity. He writes in a culture that increasingly values the inner life and the authenticity of feeling, and he assumes a kind of moral responsibility embedded in style. Do not infect the reader with tedium. Do not pass along cynicism born of mere habit. The page should be a channel, not a quarantine.
Pleasure here can be misunderstood. He does not point to easy amusement. He means the deep satisfaction of finding the right word, the keen interest of discovery, the quiet joy of shaping thought. Even when the subject is grief or injustice, there can be a grave pleasure in getting it true. Without that sustaining spark, even earnest writing turns dutiful and dull; with it, difficult material gains clarity and force.
His counsel also offers a practical method for revision. Lines that felt dead in the hand will read dead on the tongue. Mark the sentences that resisted you; they will resist your reader. Seek the places where your attention quickened and build from there. Pleasure becomes a compass, not an excuse.
The aphorism remains bracing because it ties aesthetics to ethics. Write from a felt aliveness so the reader may feel alive. If the words awaken you as you make them, they will not fail to awaken someone else.
Placed between the late Enlightenment and the dawning Romantic age, Joubert prizes sensibility and sincerity. He writes in a culture that increasingly values the inner life and the authenticity of feeling, and he assumes a kind of moral responsibility embedded in style. Do not infect the reader with tedium. Do not pass along cynicism born of mere habit. The page should be a channel, not a quarantine.
Pleasure here can be misunderstood. He does not point to easy amusement. He means the deep satisfaction of finding the right word, the keen interest of discovery, the quiet joy of shaping thought. Even when the subject is grief or injustice, there can be a grave pleasure in getting it true. Without that sustaining spark, even earnest writing turns dutiful and dull; with it, difficult material gains clarity and force.
His counsel also offers a practical method for revision. Lines that felt dead in the hand will read dead on the tongue. Mark the sentences that resisted you; they will resist your reader. Seek the places where your attention quickened and build from there. Pleasure becomes a compass, not an excuse.
The aphorism remains bracing because it ties aesthetics to ethics. Write from a felt aliveness so the reader may feel alive. If the words awaken you as you make them, they will not fail to awaken someone else.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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