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Michel de Montaigne

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   21 Michel de Montaigne
   1 Mortimer J Adler

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1422 Michel de Montaigne
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1:I am myself the matter of my book.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

2:The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness." ~ Michel de Montaigne,

3:The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

4:Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

5:Sometimes it is a good choice not to choose at all. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

6:Let it be that our happiness depends only on ourselves. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

7:I quote others only in order the better to express myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

8:He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

9:Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

10:Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

11:Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

12:I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

13:The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

14:I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

15:The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

16:If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

17:It is an absolute and virtually divine perfection to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

18:To lament that we shall not be alive a hundred years hence, is the same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

19:I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

20:The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

21:We do not know where death awaits us; so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave." ~ Michel de Montaigne, (1533 - 1592) French philosopher of the French Renaissance, Wikipedia,

22:Reading list (1972 edition)[edit] 1. Homer - Iliad, Odyssey 2. The Old Testament 3. Aeschylus - Tragedies 4. Sophocles - Tragedies 5. Herodotus - Histories 6. Euripides - Tragedies 7. Thucydides - History of the Peloponnesian War 8. Hippocrates - Medical Writings 9. Aristophanes - Comedies 10. Plato - Dialogues 11. Aristotle - Works 12. Epicurus - Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 13. Euclid - Elements 14.Archimedes - Works 15. Apollonius of Perga - Conic Sections 16. Cicero - Works 17. Lucretius - On the Nature of Things 18. Virgil - Works 19. Horace - Works 20. Livy - History of Rome 21. Ovid - Works 22. Plutarch - Parallel Lives; Moralia 23. Tacitus - Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania 24. Nicomachus of Gerasa - Introduction to Arithmetic 25. Epictetus - Discourses; Encheiridion 26. Ptolemy - Almagest 27. Lucian - Works 28. Marcus Aurelius - Meditations 29. Galen - On the Natural Faculties 30. The New Testament 31. Plotinus - The Enneads 32. St. Augustine - On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine 33. The Song of Roland 34. The Nibelungenlied 35. The Saga of Burnt Njal 36. St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica 37. Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy 38. Geoffrey Chaucer - Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 39. Leonardo da Vinci - Notebooks 40. Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 41. Desiderius Erasmus - The Praise of Folly 42. Nicolaus Copernicus - On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 43. Thomas More - Utopia 44. Martin Luther - Table Talk; Three Treatises 45. François Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel 46. John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion 47. Michel de Montaigne - Essays 48. William Gilbert - On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies 49. Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote 50. Edmund Spenser - Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene 51. Francis Bacon - Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis 52. William Shakespeare - Poetry and Plays 53. Galileo Galilei - Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences 54. Johannes Kepler - Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World 55. William Harvey - On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 56. Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan 57. René Descartes - Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy 58. John Milton - Works 59. Molière - Comedies 60. Blaise Pascal - The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 61. Christiaan Huygens - Treatise on Light 62. Benedict de Spinoza - Ethics 63. John Locke - Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education 64. Jean Baptiste Racine - Tragedies 65. Isaac Newton - Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics 66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology 67.Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe 68. Jonathan Swift - A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal 69. William Congreve - The Way of the World 70. George Berkeley - Principles of Human Knowledge 71. Alexander Pope - Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man 72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu - Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws 73. Voltaire - Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 74. Henry Fielding - Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 75. Samuel Johnson - The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets    ~ Mortimer J Adler,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:The thing I fear most is fear. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

2:My art and profession is to live. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

3:I am myself the matter of my book. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

4:Ignorance is the mother of all evils. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

5:Ambition is not a vice of little people. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

6:Virtue craves a steep and thorny path.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

7:God sends the cold according to the coat. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

8:A man must become wise at his own expense. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

9:A strong imagination begetteth opportunity. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

10:No man profiteth but by the loss of others. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

11:It is not death, it is dying that alarms me. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

12:Few men have been admired of their familiars. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

13:I want death to find me planting my cabbages. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

14:Fame and tranquillity can never be bedfellows. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

15:Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

16:An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

17:I quote others in order to better express myself. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

18:To understand via the heart is not to understand. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

19:Kings and philosophers defecate, and so do ladies. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

20:There is no more expensive thing than a free gift. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

21:There is no passion so contagious as that of fear. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

22:The soul that has no established aim loses itself. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

23:A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

24:Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

25:There is no wish more natural than the wish to know. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

26:Every man carries the entire form of human condition. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

27:He whose mouth is out of taste says the wine is flat. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

28:A man should ever be ready booted to take his journey. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

29:The clearest sign of wisdom is continued cheerfulness. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

30:Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

31:No pleasure has any savor for me without communication. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

32:Friendship is the highest degree of perfection in society. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

33:Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

34:True freedom is to have power over oneself for everything. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

35:Excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgments. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

36:Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

37:He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

38:Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

39:One should always have one's boots on and be ready to leave. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

40:The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

41:The customs and practices of life in society sweep us along. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

42:The day of your birth leads you to death as well as to life. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

43:Wise men have more to learn of fools than fools of wise men. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

44:There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

45:The word is half his that speaks, and half his that hears it. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

46:Every day I hear stupid people say things that are not stupid. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

47:I have never known a greater miracle, or monster, than myself. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

48:It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

49:Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

50:There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

51:The wise man lives as long as he ought, not so long as he can. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

52:Since we cannot match it let us take our revenge by abusing it. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

53:I must use these great men's virtues as a cloak for my weakness. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

54:Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

55:Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

56:A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

57:Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

58:It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

59:The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

60:A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

61:I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

62:To philosophize is nothing else than to prepare oneself for death. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

63:A man must live in the world and make the best of it, such as it is. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

64:Among the liberal arts, let us begin with the art that liberates us. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

65:Friendship is a creature formed for a companionship, not for a herd. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

66:Miracles arise from our ignorance of nature, not from nature itself. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

67:The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

68:How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime! ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

69:The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

70:The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be self-sufficient. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

71:There is no greater enemy to those who would please than expectation. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

72:I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

73:There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

74:Valour is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

75:Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

76:I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

77:Our wisdom and deliberation for the most part follow the lead of chance. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

78:He who does not live in some degree for others, hardly lives for himself. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

79:The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure no slight pleasure. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

80:There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

81:Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

82:Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

83:On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

84:The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

85:Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

86:It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

87:My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

88:Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

89:The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to know how to live to purpose. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

90:Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

91:Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

92:We find our energies are actually cramped when we are overanxious to succeed. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

93:Nor is it enough to toughen up his soul; you must also toughen up his muscles. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

94:There is no such thing as an altogether ugly woman - nor altogether beautiful. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

95:Nature has, herself, I fear, imprinted in man a kind of instinct to inhumanity. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

96:Praise is always pleasing, let it come from whom, or upon what account it will. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

97:Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

98:The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

99:There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

100:Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves with railing against it. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

101:For truth itself has not the privilege to be spoken at all times and in all sorts. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

102:It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

103:The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use, we make of them. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

104:Glory and repose are things that cannot possibly inhabit in one and the same place. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

105:He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

106:The lack of wealth is easily repaired but the poverty of the soul is irreplaceable. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

107:There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

108:No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

109:Decency, not to dare to do that in public which it is decent enough to do in private. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

110:How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

111:Scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and the one nearest at hand.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

112:I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

113:There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

114:In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

115:The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.    ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

116:The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

117:Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

118:Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

119:The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

120:The relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

121:If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

122:Whether the events in our life are good or bad, greatly depends on the way we perceive them. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

123:It is setting a high value upon our opinions to roast men and women alive on account of them. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

124:The shortest way to arrive at glory would be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

125:Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm and yet he will be making gods by dozens.    ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

126:There is nothing on which men are commonly more intent than on making a way for their opinions. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

127:Wisdom is a solid and entire building, of which every piece keeps its place and bears its mark. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

128:Everyone rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

129:We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

130:Let us a little permit Nature to take her own way; she better understands her own Affairs than we. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

131:Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

132:If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

133:The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

134:Everyone may speak truly, but to speak logically, prudently, and adequately is a talent few possess.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

135:We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

136:I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

137:The births of all things are weak and tender and therefore we should have our eyes intent on beginnings. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

138:We only labour to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

139:A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

140:I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

141:It is not a mind, it is not a body that we educate, but it is a man, and we must not make two parts of him. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

142:It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing is more miserable or more proud than man. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

143:Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

144:We judge a horse not only by its pace on a racecourse, but also by its walk, nay, when resting in its stable. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

145:I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more wilfully obstinate. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

146:There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

147:Marriage happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

148:In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

149:I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself.  I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

150:If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

151:There is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

152:A learned man is not learned in all things; but a sufficient man is sufficient throughout, even to ignorance itself. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

153:It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

154:I leaf through books, I do not study them. What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else’s. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

155:For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

156:The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

157:Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

158:Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

159:Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the extremest of all vices. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

160:He was doubtless an understanding Fellow that said, there was no happy Marriage but betwixt a blind Wife and a deaf Husband. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

161:The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

162:Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

163:It is equally pointless to weep because we won't be alive a hundred years from now as that we were not here a hundred years ago. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

164:There never were in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

165:I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

166:O human creature, you are the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and all in all, the fool of the farce. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

167:Truly it is reasonable to make a great distinction between the faults that come from our weakness and those that come from our wickedness. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

168:Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

169:No man dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours, than that which was before your birth, and concerneth you no more. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

170:There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

171:The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

172:Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

173:Someone may say of me, that I have here only made a nosegay of other men’s flowers, having furnished nothing of my own but the thread to tie them. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

174:The first lessons with which we should irrigate his mind should be those which teach him to know himself, and to know how to die ... and to live. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

175:I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided if greater pains be the consequence, and pains to be coveted that will terminate in greater pleasures.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

176:When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books, They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

177:The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold... . The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour causes a war betwixt princes. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

178:If I were a maker of books I should compile a register, with comments, of different deaths. He who should teach people to die, would teach them to live. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

179:I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

180:As one might say of me that I have only made here a collection of other people's flowers, having provided nothing of my own but the cord to bind them together. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

181:There are few things on which we can pass a sincere judgement, because there are few things in which we have not, in one way or another, a particular interest. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

182:Since philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in it? ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

183:I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

184:Even in the midst of compassion we feel within I know not what tart sweet titillation of malicious pleasure in seeing others suffer; children have the same feeling. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

185:If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

186:I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray... I am myself the matter of my book. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

187:There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience.    ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

188:If others examined themselves attentively, as I do, they would find themselves, as I do, full of inanity and nonsense. Get rid of it I cannot without getting rid of myself. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

189:It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. A spirited mind never stops within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

190:The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use, we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

191:It has never occurred to me to wish for empire or royalty, nor for the eminence of those high and commanding fortunes. My aim lies not in that direction; I love myself too well. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

192:Ambition and curiosity are the two scourges of the soul: the latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything; the former prevents our leaving anything in doubt or undecided.   ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

193:Ambition and curiosity are the two scourges of the soul: the latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything; the former prevents our leaving anything in doubt or undecided.    ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

194:If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

195:In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

196:It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my reason. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

197:No one but yourself knows whether you are cowardly and cruel, or loyal and devout; others do not see you; they surmise you by uncertain conjectures; they perceive not so much your nature as your art. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

198:Human understanding is marvellously enlightened by daily conversation with men, for we are, otherwise, compressed and heaped up in ourselves, and have our sight limited to the length of our own noses. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

199:There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

200:God is favourable to those whom he makes to die by degrees; 'tis the only benefit of old age. The last death will be so much the less painful: it will kill but a quarter of a man or but half a one at most. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

201:Those sciences which govern the morals of mankind, such as Theology and Philosophy, make everything their concern: no activity is so private or so secret as to escape their attention or their jurisdiction. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

202:I agree that we should work and prolong the functions of life as far as we can, and hope that Death may find me planting my cabbages, but indifferent to him and still more to the unfinished state of my garden. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

203:I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man's estate. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

204:But in truth I know nothing about the philosophy of education except this: that the greatest and the most important difficulty known to human learning seems to lie in that area which treats how to bring up children and how to educate them. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

205:Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behaviour, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

206:We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say? ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

207:Any time and any place can be used to study: his room, a garden, is table, his bed; when alone or in company; morning and evening. His chief study will be Philosophy, that Former of good judgement and character who is privileged to be concerned with everything. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

208:In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is in conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life; and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

209:Learning is a good medicine: but no medicine is powerful enough to preserve itself from taint and corruption independently of defects in the jar that it is kept in. One man sees clearly but does not see straight: consequently, he sees what is good but fails to follow it; he sees knowledge and does not use it. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

210:We are great fools. "He has passed his life in idleness," we say. "I have done nothing today." What! Haven't you lived? That is not only the fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations. Michel de Montaigne ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

211:The concern that some women show at the absence of their husbands, does not arise from their not seeing them and being with them, but from their apprehension that their husbands are enjoying pleasures in which they do not participate, and which, from their being at a distance, they have not the power of interrupting. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

212:In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

213:Teach him a certain refinement in sorting out and selecting his arguments, with an affection for relevance and so for brevity. Above all let him be taught to throw down his arms and surrender to truth as soon as he perceives it, whether the truth is born at his rival's doing or within himself from some change in his ideas. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

214:Laws gain their authority from actual possession and custom: it is perilous to go back to their origins; laws, like our rivers, get greater and nobler as they roll along: follow them back upstream to their sources and all you find is a tiny spring, hardly recognizable; as time goes by it swells with pride and grows in strength. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

215:Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

216:It is a dangerous and fateful presumption, besides the absurd temerity that it implies, to disdain what we do not comprehend. For after you have established, according to your fine understanding, the limits of truth and falsehood, and it turns out that you must necessarily believe things even stranger than those you deny, you are obliged from then on to abandon these limits. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

217:Pythagoras used to say that life resembles the Olympic Games: a few people strain their muscles to carry off a prize; others bring trinkets to sell to the crowd for gain; and some there are, and not the worst, who seek no other profit than to look at the show and see how and why everything is done; spectators of the life of other people in order to judge and regulate their own. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

218:To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere." "To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

219:.. since it was true that study, even when done properly, can only teach us what wisdom, right conduct and determination consist in, they wanted to put their children directly in touch with actual cases, teaching them not by hearsay but by actively assaying them, vigorously moulding and forming them not merely by word and precept but chiefly by deeds and examples, so that wisdom should not be something which the soul knows but the soul's very essence and temperament, not something acquired but a natural property. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

220:I would like to suggest that our minds are swamped by too much study and by too much matter just as plants are swamped by too much water or lamps by too much oil; that our minds, held fast and encumbered by so many diverse preoccupations, may well lose the means of struggling free, remaining bowed and bent under the load; except that it is quite otherwise: the more our souls are filled, the more they expand; examples drawn from far-off times show, on the contrary, that great soldiers ad statesmen were also great scholars. ~ michel-de-montaigne, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Que sçay-je? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

2:Ease crushes us. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

3:Death pays all debts. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

4:We are all blockheads. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

5:Habit is second nature. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

6:it is myself I paint. My ~ Michel de Montaigne,

7:Habit is a second nature. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

8:I do not teach. I relate. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

9:Every movement reveals us. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

10:God defend me from myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

11:Wie overal is, is nergens. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

12:My trade and art is to live. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

13:To philosophize is to doubt. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

14:Books are a languid pleasure. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

15:Eduquer, c'est allumer un feu ~ Michel de Montaigne,

16:It needs courage to be afraid. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

17:Que sçay-je? (What do I know?) ~ Michel de Montaigne,

18:The thing I fear most is fear. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

19:One may be humble out of pride. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

20:Que sçais-je?" (What do I know?) ~ Michel de Montaigne,

21:Let every foot have its own shoe. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

22:My art and profession is to live. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

23:And not to serve for a table-talk. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

24:He loves little who loves by rule. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

25:I am myself the matter of my book. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

26:No man is a hero to his own valet. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

27:We should tend our freedom wisely. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

28:Cowardice is the mother of cruelty. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

29:L'honneste est stable et permanent. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

30:Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

31:To philosophize is to learn to die. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

32:To smell, though well, is to stink. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

33:We cannot fail in following nature. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

34:It is fear that I am most afraid of. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

35:Às vezes é boa escolha nada escolher. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

36:I am myself the matter of my book.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

37:My appetite comes to me while eating. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

38:The world is but a perpetual see-saw. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

39:What a man hates, he takes seriously. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

40:A man may be humble through vainglory. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

41:Few men are admired by their servants. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

42:L’homme d’entendement n’a rien a perdre ~ Michel de Montaigne,

43:Men are nothing until they are excited. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

44:Necessity is a violent school-mistress. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

45:Only the fools are certain and assured. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

46:To philosophise is to learn how to die. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

47:We have nothing to fear but fear itself ~ Michel de Montaigne,

48:You have your face bare; I am all face. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

49:Ambition is not a vice of little people. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

50:I do not understand; I pause; I examine. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

51:Saying is one thing and doing is another ~ Michel de Montaigne,

52:The most universal quality is diversity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

53:For a desperate disease a desperate cure. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

54:God sends the cold according to the coat. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

55:In my opinion, every rich man is a miser. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

56:No noble thing can be done without risks. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

57:Pleasure itself is painful at the bottom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

58:We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

59:A man must become wise at his own expense. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

60:Most pleasures embrace us but to strangle. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

61:A strong imagination begetteth opportunity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

62:It's not victory if it doesn't end the war. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

63:[Just as any foreigner is not fully human.] ~ Michel de Montaigne,

64:No man profiteth but by the loss of others. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

65:No wind favors he who has no destined port. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

66:Time steals away without any inconvenience. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

67:To know how to live is my trade and my art. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

68:We have power over nothing except our will. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

69:Women when they marry buy a cat in the bag. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

70:It is not death, it is dying that alarms me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

71:The good opinion of the vulgar is injurious. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

72:We need but little learning to live happily. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

73:When we have got it, we want something else. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

74:All general judgments are loose and imperfect ~ Michel de Montaigne,

75:Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

76:Few men have been admired of their familiars. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

77:I had rather fashion my mind than furnish it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

78:I have seen people rude by being over-polite. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

79:I want death to find me planting my cabbages. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

80:Kings and philosophers shit—and so do ladies. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

81:Parce que c'était lui, parce que c'était moi. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

82:The only thing certain is nothing is certain. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

83:The smallest annoyances, disturb us the most. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

84:We are all of us richer than we think we are. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

85:We must learn to suffer what we cannot evade. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

86:A foreign war is a lot milder than a civil war. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

87:Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

88:I walk firmer and more secure uphill than down. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

89:The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

90:An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

91:Custom is a second nature, and no less powerful. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

92:Happiness is a singular incentive to mediocrity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

93:I would rather be an expert on me than on Cicero ~ Michel de Montaigne,

94:Not being able to govern events, I govern myself ~ Michel de Montaigne,

95:The beauty of stature is the only beauty of men. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

96:The clatter of arms drowns out the voice of law. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

97:The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

98:To obey is the proper office of a rational soul. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

99:A wise man loses nothing, if he but save himself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

100:I quote others in order to better express myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

101:Is there anything so grave and serious as an ass? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

102:Je veux que la mort me trouve plantant mes choux. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

103:Not being able to govern events, I govern myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

104:The soul that has no established aim loses itself ~ Michel de Montaigne,

105:To know much is often the cause of doubting more. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

106:To understand via the heart is not to understand. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

107:Desire and hope will push us on toward the future. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

108:Habituation puts to sleep the eye of our judgment. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

109:Il n'est rien qui tente mes larmes que les larmes. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

110:Kings and philosophers defecate, and so do ladies. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

111:Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

112:The continuous work of our life is to build death. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

113:There is no more expensive thing than a free gift. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

114:There is no passion so contagious as that of fear. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

115:A man must either imitate the vicious or hate them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

116:A well-bred man is always sociable and complaisant. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

117:A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

118:graces were never yet given to any one man."A verse ~ Michel de Montaigne,

119:Happiness involves working toward meaningful goals. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

120:It is easier to sacrifice great than little things. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

121:Sometimes it is a good choice not to choose at all. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

122:The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

123:The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

124:Whatever can be done another day can be done today. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

125:Every abridgement of a good book is a fool abridged. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

126:[Fortune is glass: it glitters, then it shatters.]58 ~ Michel de Montaigne,

127:He who lives not to others, lives little to himself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

128:Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

129:Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

130:Sometimes it is a good choice not to choose at all. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

131:There is no wish more natural than the wish to know. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

132:Women are more susceptible to pain than to pleasure. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

133:Writing does not cause misery. It is born of misery. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

134:Writing does not cause misery, it is born of misery. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

135:All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

136:As soon as women become ours we are no longer theirs. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

137:A woman is no sooner ours than we are no longer hers. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

138:Every man carries the entire form of human condition. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

139:He whose mouth is out of taste says the wine is flat. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

140:The honor of the conquest is rated by the difficulty. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

141:Vexations may be petty, but they are vexations still. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

142:Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

143:I never met a man who thought his thinking was faulty. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

144:There are some defeats more triumphant than victories. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

145:To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to 't. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

146:Why do people respect the package rather than the man? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

147:Don't be afraid to say what you are not afraid to think ~ Michel de Montaigne,

148:Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

149:Every man has within himself the entire human condition ~ Michel de Montaigne,

150:He who would teach men to die would teach them to live. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

151:Il n'est pas de chagrin qu'un livre ne puisse consoler. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

152:It is a rare life that remains orderly even in private. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

153:It is not necessity but abundance which produces greed. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

154:I would have every man write what he knows and no more. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

155:Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

156:Men are most apt to believe what they least understand. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

157:My reason is not framed to bend or stoop: my knees are. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

158:No pleasure has any savor for me without communication. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

159:Opinion is a powerful party, bold, and without measure. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

160:Qui craint de souffrir souffre déjà de ce qu’il craint. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

161:To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

162:Whoever will be cured of ignorance, let him confess it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

163:I would rather be an authority on myself than on Cicero. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

164:Learning must not only lodge with us: we must marry her. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

165:The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

166:A man with nothing to lend should refrain from borrowing. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

167:A strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

168:For being the more learned, they are none the less fools. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

169:He that I am reading seems always to have the most force. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

170:I give my opinion not as being good, but as being my own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

171:Il faut se prêter à autrui et ne se donner qu'à soi-même. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

172:I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

173:Jeg har ikke noen annen lidenskap til å holde meg i ånde. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

174:Life should be an aim unto itself, a purpose unto itself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

175:Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

176:Tis so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

177:Todos los días van hacia la muerte, el último la alcanza. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

178:You should study more to understand that you know little. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

179:Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

180:Friendship is the highest degree of perfection in society. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

181:I quote others only in order the better to express myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

182:La plus grande chose du monde, c'est de savoir être à soi. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

183:Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

184:Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

185:Nul vent ne faict pour celuy qui n'a point de port destiné ~ Michel de Montaigne,

186:One should be ever booted and spurred and ready to depart. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

187:Speaking is half his that speaks, and half his that hears. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

188:Those things that are dearest to us have cost us the most. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

189:True freedom is to have power over oneself for everything. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

190:Why did I love her? Because it was her; because it was me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

191:A man has need of tough ears to hear himself fairly judged. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

192:A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

193:Excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgments. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

194:He who fears he shall suffer already suffers what he fears. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

195:He who fears he will suffer, already suffers from his fear. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

196:I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

197:I quote others only in order the better to express myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

198:Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

199:No doctor takes pleasure in the health even of his friends. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

200:Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

201:Things seem greater by imagination than they are in effect. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

202:To die of age is a rare, singular, and extraordinary death, ~ Michel de Montaigne,

203:Everything must not always be said, for that would be folly. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

204:He that is a friend to himself, know; he is a friend to all. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

205:He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

206:I speak to the paper, as I speak to the first person I meet. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

207:Lawyers and physicians are an ill provision for any country. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

208:Nothing doth sooner breed a distaste or satiety than plenty. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

209:One should always have one's boots on and be ready to leave. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

210:Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

211:The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

212:The customs and practices of life in society sweep us along. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

213:The day of your birth leads you to death as well as to life. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

214:We do not correct the man we hang; we correct others by him. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

215:We should spread joy, but, as far as we can, repress sorrow. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

216:Who feareth to suffer suffereth already, because he feareth. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

217:Wise men have more to learn of fools than fools of wise men. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

218:A hair shirt does not always render those chaste who wear it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

219:A lady could not boast of her chastity who was never tempted. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

220:He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

221:The man who thinks he knows does not yet know what knowing is ~ Michel de Montaigne,

222:The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould ~ Michel de Montaigne,

223:Words repeated again have as another sound, so another sense. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

224:All permanent decisions are made in a temporary state of mind. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

225:an outstanding memory is often associated with weak judgement. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

226:A speech belongs half to the speaker and half to the listener. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

227:Every day I hear stupid people say things that are not stupid. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

228:If I am a man of some reading, I am a man of no retentiveness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

229:I have never known a greater miracle, or monster, than myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

230:I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

231:It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

232:Kendimizden kaçmamız, kendimizde olup biteni bilmememizdendir. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

233:Les montagnes bougent, c'est juste qu'elles bougent lentement. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

234:L'utilité du vivre n'est pas en l'espace: elle est en l'usage. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

235:Open talk opens the way to further talk, as wine does or love. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

236:Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

237:There is a plague on Man: his opinion that he knows something. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

238:There is a plague on Man, the opinion that he knows something. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

239:The wise man lives as long as he ought, not so long as he can. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

240:To make a crooked stick straight, we bend it the contrary way. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

241:All is a-swarm with commentaries: of authors there is a dearth. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

242:All is a-swarm with commentaries; of authors there is a dearth. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

243:All of the days go toward death and the last one arrives there. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

244:Fie on the eloquence that leaves us craving itself, not things! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

245:It is not my deeds that I write down, it is myself, my essence. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

246:Kun je ook maar iemand goed vinden als je niemand slecht vindt? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

247:Like the watermen who advance forward while they look backward. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

248:No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

249:Off I go, rummaging about in books for sayings which please me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

250:Since we cannot match it let us take our revenge by abusing it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

251:The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

252:There is nothing useless in nature; not even uselessness itself ~ Michel de Montaigne,

253:Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

254:Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

255:As far as physicians go, chance is more valuable than knowledge. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

256:Gentleness and repose are paramount to everything else in woman. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

257:Honesty is a question of right and wrong, not a matter of policy ~ Michel de Montaigne,

258:Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head ~ Michel de Montaigne,

259:I had rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

260:I must use these great men's virtues as a cloak for my weakness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

261:Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

262:Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

263:Silence and modesty are very valuable qualities in conversation. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

264:The ceaseless labor of your life is to build the house of death. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

265:A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

266:a good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

267:All the opinions in the world point out that pleasure is our aim. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

268:Anyone who teaches men how to die would teach them how to live.36 ~ Michel de Montaigne,

269:Cada cual llama barbarie a lo que no forma parte de su costumbre. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

270:Heureuse la mort qui oste le loisir aux apprests de tel equipage. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

271:He who fears he will suffer, already suffers because of his fear. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

272:Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

273:Intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

274:It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

275:Man in sooth is a marvellous, vain, fickle, and unstable subject. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

276:No passion disturbs the soundness of our judgement as anger does. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

277:The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

278:There are no truths, only moments of claryty passing for answers. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

279:We are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

280:A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

281:Each man contains the entire pattern of the human condition. There ~ Michel de Montaigne,

282:How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

283:I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

284:Nichts wird so fest geglaubt wie das, was wir am wenigsten wissen. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

285:The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live to the point. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

286:The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live with purpose. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

287:Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

288:To philosophize is nothing else than to prepare oneself for death. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

289:Who so hath his mind on taking, hath it no more on what he taketh. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

290:Friendship is a creature formed for a companionship not for a herd. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

291:Hath God obliged himself not to exceed the bounds of our knowledge? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

292:I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

293:oddness or novelty (qualities which usually give value to anything) ~ Michel de Montaigne,

294:Only he can judge of matters great and high whose soul is likewise. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

295:Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

296:The greatest thing in the world is to know how to live to yourself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

297:The memory represents to us not what we choose but what it pleases. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

298:We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

299:A man must live in the world and make the best of it, such as it is. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

300:A man should not so much respect what he eats, as with whom he eats. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

301:Among the liberal arts, let us begin with the art that liberates us. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

302:Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

303:In our time the most warlike nations are the most rude and ignorant. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

304:It is a human tendency "to measure truth and error by our capacity." ~ Michel de Montaigne,

305:It is much more easy to accuse the one sex than to excuse the other. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

306:I would rather be old for a shorter time than be old before my time. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

307:Miracles arise from our ignorance of nature, not from nature itself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

308:Most of our desires are born and nurtured at other people's expense. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

309:The curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

310:The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

311:All the fame you should look for in life is to have lived it quietly. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

312:Almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and on credit. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

313:How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

314:I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

315:Mon métier et mon art c’est vivre. [My craft and my skill is living.] ~ Michel de Montaigne,

316:The danger was not that I would do wrong, but that I would do nothing ~ Michel de Montaigne,

317:The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

318:The profit we possess after study is to have become better and wiser. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

319:There is no greater enemy to those who would please than expectation. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

320:Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul ~ Michel de Montaigne,

321:Virtue shuns ease as a companion. It demands a rough and thorny path. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

322:[What best becomes a man is whatever is most peculiarly his own.] [B] ~ Michel de Montaigne,

323:El amor no es más que el deseo furioso de algo que huye de nosotros... ~ Michel de Montaigne,

324:I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

325:Let [children] be able to do all things, and love to do only the good. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

326:Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

327:No one should be subjected to force over things which belonged to him. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

328:The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

329:There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

330:The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play ~ Michel de Montaigne,

331:Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

332:What hits you affects you and wakes you up more then what pleases you. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

333:A man must learn to endure patiently what he cannot avoid conveniently. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

334:A person of honor chooses to loss his honor rather than his consicience ~ Michel de Montaigne,

335:But you do not die because you are sick, you die because you are alive. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

336:Malice sucks up the greatest part of its own venom, and poisons itself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

337:Not because Socrates said so,... I look upon all men as my compatriots. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

338:The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

339:Wisdom has its excesses, and has no less need of moderation than folly. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

340:A little folly is desirable in him that will not be guilty of stupidity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

341:A little of everything and nothing thoroughly, after the French fashion. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

342:Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

343:I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

344:I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

345:In love, 'tis no other than frantic desire for that which flies from us. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

346:It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

347:Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

348:Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the mind as the wish to forget it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

349:On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

350:Our wisdom and deliberation for the most part follow the lead of chance. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

351:We are born to inquire into truth; it belongs to a greater to possess it ~ Michel de Montaigne,

352:Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

353:All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty and good-nature ~ Michel de Montaigne,

354:As Michel de Montaigne observed, “No wind favors him who has no destined port. ~ John C Maxwell,

355:Every place swarms with commentaries; of authors there is great scarcity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

356:He who does not live in some degree for others, hardly lives for himself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

357:I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

358:In plain Truth, it is no Want, but rather Abundance that creates Avarice. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

359:Man is forming thousands of ridiculous relations between himself and God. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

360:Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it ~ Michel de Montaigne,

361:Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

362:One must be a little foolish if one does not want to be even more stupid. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

363:Rash and incessant scolding runs into custom and renders itself despised. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

364:The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

365:There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

366:The Stoics forbid this emotion to their sages as being base and cowardly. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

367:Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

368:He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

369:Kendimizle aramızdaki fark, bir başkasıyla aramızdaki fark kadar büyüktür. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

370:Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

371::Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it ~ Michel de Montaigne,

372:The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

373:To honor him whom we have made is far from honoring him that hath made us. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

374:We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

375:We should rather examine, who is better learned, than who is more learned. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

376:When I quote others I do so in order to express my own ideas more clearly. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

377:And obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at least in vigour and stability. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

378:Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

379:I...think it much more supportable to be always alone, than never to be so. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

380:It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

381:My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

382:No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the misfortune is to do it solemnly ~ Michel de Montaigne,

383:Nothing else but an insatiate thirst of enjoying a greedily desired object. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

384:Scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and nearest at hand. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

385:The most unhappy and frail creatures are men and yet they are the proudest. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

386:There is hardly less torment in running a family than in running a country. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

387:There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

388:Certainly, if he still has himself, a man of understanding has lost nothing. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

389:Experience has further taught me this, that we ruin ourselves by impatience. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

390:Give me the provisions and whole apparatus of a kitchen, and I would starve. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

391:He who falls obstinate in his courage, if he falls he fights from his knees. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

392:I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

393:It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

394:Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

395:My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

396:Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

397:The worth of the mind consisteth not in going high, but in marching orderly. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

398:Tis the taste of effeminacy that disrelishes ordinary and accustomed things. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

399:What fear has once made me will, I am bound still to will when without fear. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

400:Without doubt, it is a delightful harmony when doing and saying go together. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

401:A man is not hurt so much by what happens, as by his opinion of what happens. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

402:Death is not one of our social managements; it is a scene with one character. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

403:Example is a bright looking-glass, universal and for all shapes to look into. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

404:He that had never seen a river, imagined the first he met with to be the sea. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

405:Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

406:Take care that old age does not wrinkle your spirit even more than your face. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

407:The greatest and glorious masterpiece of a man is how to live with a purpose. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

408:We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

409:We find our energies are actually cramped when we are overanxious to succeed. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

410:As for extraordinary things, all the provision in the world would not suffice. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

411:D'autant que nous avons cher, estre, et estre consiste en mouvement et action. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

412:I care not so much what I am in the opinion of others, as what I am in my own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

413:If it lay in my power to make myself feared, I had rather make myself beloved. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

414:I seek in the reading of books, only to please myself, by an honest diversion. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

415:Nature is a gentle guide, but not more sweet and gentle than prudent and just. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

416:Nor is it enough to toughen up his soul; you must also toughen up his muscles. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

417:Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

418:There is no passion so much transports the sincerity of judgment as doth anger ~ Michel de Montaigne,

419:The reverse side of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and no defined limits. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

420:The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

421:'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

422:Experience teaches that a strong memory is generally joined to a weak judgment. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

423:Gjor vi ikke oss selv til dyr når vi kaller den handling som skaper oss dyrisk? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

424:I determine nothing; I do not comprehend things; I suspend judgment; I examine. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

425:I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

426:My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

427:Nature has, herself, I fear, imprinted in man a kind of instinct to inhumanity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

428:Praise is always pleasing, let it come from whom, or upon what account it will. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

429:Pride dwells in the thought; the tongue can have but a very little share in it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

430:The diversity of physical arguments and opinions embraces all sorts of methods. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

431:There are truths on this side of the Pyrenees which are falsehoods on the other ~ Michel de Montaigne,

432:The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

433:This notion [skepticism] is more clearly understood by asking "What do I know?" ~ Michel de Montaigne,

434:Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

435:When we see a man with bad shoes, we say it is no wonder, if he is a shoemaker. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

436:Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

437:It is an absolute perfection... to get the very most out of one's individuality. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

438:It is taking one's conjectures rather seriously to roast someone alive for them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

439:I will follow the good side right to the fire, but not into it if I can help it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

440:Nobody is exempt from saying stupid things, the harm is to do it presumptuously. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

441:The archer who overshoots his mark does no better than he who falls short of it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

442:The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

443:The conduct of our lives is the true reflection of our thoughts. —MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE ~ Gretchen Rubin,

444:There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

445:Those that will combat use and custom by the strict rules of grammar do but jest ~ Michel de Montaigne,

446:Virtue can have naught to do with ease. . . . It craves a steep and thorny path. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

447:All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

448:And to bring in a new word by the head and shoulders, they leave out the old one. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

449:Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

450:For I never see the whole of anything; nor do those who promise to show it to us. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

451:If I can, I will prevent my death from saying anything not first said by my life. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

452:In general I ask for books that make use of learning, not those that build it up. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

453:Lucius Arruntius killed himself, he said, to escape both the future and the past. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

454:Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

455:The beautiful souls are they that are unniversal, open, and ready for all things. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

456:We are more unhappy to see people ahead of us than happy to see people behind us. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

457:Whom conscience, ne'er asleep, Wounds with incessant strokes, not loud, but deep. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

458:For truth itself has not the privilege to be spoken at all times and in all sorts. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

459:It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

460:Report followeth not all goodness, except difficulty and rarity be joined thereto. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

461:There is no passion so much transports the sincerity of judgement as doth anger ~ Michel de Montaigne,

462:The sage says that all that is under heaven incurs the same law and the same fate. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

463:We are nearer neighbours to ourselves than whiteness to snow, or weight to stones. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

464:We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

465:Disappointment and feebleness imprint upon us a cowardly and valetudinarian virtue. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

466:Glory and repose are things that cannot possibly inhabit in one and the same place. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

467:He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

468:How many things were articles of faith to us yesterday that are fables to us today? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

469:If I were of the trade, I should naturalize art as much as they "artialize" nature. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

470:Le monde n’est qu’une balançoire perpétuelle. Toutes choses y balancent sans cesse. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

471:Men ... are not agreed about any one thing, not even that heaven is over our heads. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

472:No one is exempt from speaking nonsense. The great misfortune is to do it solemnly. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

473:No-one is exempt from speaking nonsense – the only misfortune is to do it solemnly. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

474:The lack of wealth is easily repaired but the poverty of the soul is irreplaceable. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

475:There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

476:~The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them ~ ~ Michel de Montaigne,

477:Anyone who does not feel sufficiently strong in memory should not meddle with lying. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

478:Children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

479:He who establishes his argument by noise and command, shows that his reason is weak. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

480:No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

481:Philosophical discussions habitually make men happy and joyful not frowning and sad. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

482:Taking it all in all, I find it is more trouble to watch after money than to get it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

483:The laws of conscience, though we ascribe them to nature, actually come from custom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

484:The worst condition of humans is when they lose knowledge and control of themselves. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

485:Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry the progress, ignorance the end. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

486:Decency, not to dare to do that in public which it is decent enough to do in private. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

487:Et si je suis un homme ayant quelque lecture, je suis un homme qui n’en retient rien. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

488:Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at the expense of life. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

489:How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

490:Indeed, there is no such thing as an altogether ugly woman — or altogether beautiful. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

491:It is fear that I stand most in fear of, in sharpness it exceeds every other feeling. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

492:I would rather let affairs break their neck than twist my faith for the sake of them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

493:Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

494:Men are tormented by the opinions they have of things, and not the things themselves. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

495:Nature a, (ce crains-je) elle mesme attaché à l'homme quelque instinct à l'inhumanité ~ Michel de Montaigne,

496:Reason has so many forms that we do not know which to choose-Experiment has no fewer. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

497:The great and glorious masterpiece of humanity is to know how to live with a purpose. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

498:The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

499:As for dying we can only assay that once; we are all apprentices when it comes to that ~ Michel de Montaigne,

500:He lives happy and master of himself who can say as each day passes on, "I have lived. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

501:He that I am reading seems always to have the most force. ~ Michel de Montaigne, Apology for Raimond Sebond.,

502:I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

503:I keep telling myself: anything that can be done some other day can be done today.xiii ~ Michel de Montaigne,

504:Rien n'imprime si vivement quelque chose à notre souvenance que le désir de l'oublier. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

505:There is nothing so extreme that is not allowed by the custom of some nation or other. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

506:As far as fidelity is concerned, there is no animal in the world as treacherous as man. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

507:Children's games are hardly games. Children are never more serious than when they play. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

508:If I can, I shall keep my death from saying anything that my life has not already said. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

509:I had rather my son should learn in a tan-house to speak, than in the schools to prate. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

510:I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

511:Meditation is a powerful and full study as can effectually taste and employ themselves. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

512:Socrates thought and so do I that the wisest theory about the gods is no theory at all. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

513:The judgment is an utensil proper for all subjects, and will have an oar in everything. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

514:There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

515:Wine is the benevolent god, who gives back gaiety to men and restores youth to the old. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

516:In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

517:The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from Custom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

518:The man who establishes his argument by noise and command knows that his reason is weak. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

519:There is nothing in which a horse's power is better revealed than in a neat, clean stop. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

520:There is power in ambition, pleasure in luxury...but envy can gain nothing but vexation. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

521:The relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

522:The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

523:This very Rome that we behold deserves our love ...: the only common and universal city. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

524:Door het ruimtelijk van elkaar gescheiden zijn werd onze innerlijke verbondenheid rijker. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

525:Lying is an accursed vice. It is only our words which bind us together and make us human. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

526:Our own peculiar human condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

527:Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

528:The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making them more great. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

529:There are few men who dare to publish to the world the prayers they make to Almighty God. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

530:The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere is to be nowhere.es ~ Michel de Montaigne,

531:Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

532:Bir amaca bağlanmayan ruh yolunu kaybeder. Çünkü her yerde olmak, hiçbir yerde olmamaktır. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

533:Everyone gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

534:I love a friendship that flatters itself in the sharpness and vigor of its communications. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

535:Intoxication is calculated to put heart into the elderly and give them delight in dancing. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

536:Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

537:Tis faith alone that vividly and certainly comprehends the deep mysteries of our religion. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

538:What kind of truth is this which is true on one side of a mountain and false on the other? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

539:When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

540:Even on the highest throne in the world, we are still sitting on our ass. —Michel de Montaigne O ~ Eleanor Herman,

541:I consider myself an average man, except in the fact that I consider myself an average man. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

542:I enjoy books as misers enjoy treasures, because I know I can enjoy them whenever I please. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

543:If by being overstudious, we impair our health and spoil our good humor, let us give it up. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

544:If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

545:Intemperance is the plaque of sensuality, and temperance is not its bane but its seasoning. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

546:Order a purge for your brain, it will there be much better employed than upon your stomach. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

547:The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

548:The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

549:We call comeliness a mischance in the first respect, which belongs principally to the face. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

550:Whatever is enforced by command is more imputed to him who exacts than to him who performs. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

551:Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

552:Every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the place where he chanced to be. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

553:From Obedience and submission comes all our virtues, and all sin is comes from self-opinion. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

554:I go out of my way, but rather by license than carelessness.... It is the inattentive reader ~ Michel de Montaigne,

555:It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to enjoy our being rightfully. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

556:Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

557:Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive and little instructed, make good Christians. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

558:Once you have decided to keep a certain pile, it is no longer yours; for you can't spend it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

559:Tortures are a dangerous invention, and seem to be a test of endurance rather than of truth. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

560:What kind of truth is it which has these mountains as its boundary and is a lie beyond them? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

561:Whether the events in our life are good or bad, greatly depends on the way we perceive them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

562:As for me, then, I love life and cultivate it just as God has been pleased to grant it to us. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

563:I have gathered a posy of other men’s flowers and only the thread that bonds them is my own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

564:In marriage, alliances and money rightly weigh at least as much as attractiveness and beauty. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

565:It is setting a high value upon our opinions to roast men and women alive on account of them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

566:It is very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

567:Light griefs can speak: deep sorrows are dumb."      —Seneca, Hippolytus, act ii. scene 3.] A ~ Michel de Montaigne,

568:Live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

569:The secret counsels of princes are a troublesome burden to such as have only to execute them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

570:The shortest way to arrive at glory would be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

571:... whoever believes anything esteems that it is a work of charity to persuade another of it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

572:All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

573:An orator of past times declared that his calling was to make small things appear to be grand. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

574:As far as I am concerned, no road that would lead us to health is either arduous or expensive. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

575:Have you known how to take rest? You have done more than he who hath taken empires and cities. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

576:If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

577:Lovers are angry, reconciled, entreat, thank, appoint, and finally speak all things, by their. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

578:Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

579:The finest lives in my opinion are the common model, without miracle and without extravagance. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

580:There are as many and innumerable degrees of wit, as there are cubits between this and heaven. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

581:When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not playing with me rather than I with her? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

582:I am one of those who hold that poetry is never so blithe as in a wanton and irregular subject. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

583:If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

584:It is an absolute and virtually divine perfection to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

585:Man is quite insane. He wouldn?t know how to create a maggot, and he creates Gods by the dozen. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

586:Meditation is a rich and powerful method of study for anyone who knows how to examine his mind. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

587:The only good histories are those written by those who had command in the events they describe. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

588:There is no so wretched and coarse a soul wherein some particular faculty is not seen to shine. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

589:There is nothing on which men are commonly more intent than on making a way for their opinions. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

590:Wisdom is a solid and entire building, of which every piece keeps its place and bears its mark. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

591:A man must not always tell all, for that be folly; but what a man says should be what he thinks. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

592:But sure there is need of other remedies than dreaming, a weak contention of art against nature. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

593:Difficulty is a coin the learned make use of like jugglers, to conceal the inanity of their art. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

594:Might I have had my own will, I would not have married Wisdom herself, if she would have had me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

595:No pleasure is fully delightful without communications, and no delight absolute except imparted. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

596:Though we may be learned by another's knowledge, we can never be wise but by our own experience. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

597:It is commonly seene by experience, that excellent memories do rather accompany weake judgements. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

598:Le nature sanguinarie nei riguardi degli animali rivelano una naturale inclinazione alla crudeltà ~ Michel de Montaigne,

599:No spiritual mind remains within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its own strength. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

600:Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

601:There is a certain amount of purpose, acquiescence, and satisfaction in nursing one's melancholy. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

602:Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

603:I see this evident, that we willingly accord to piety only the services that flatter our passions. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

604:Let us a little permit nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

605:Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm or a flea and yet will create Gods by the dozen! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

606:Oh these foolish men! They could not create so much as a worm, but they create gods by the dozens. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

607:The most evident token and apparent sign of true wisdom is a constant and unconstrained rejoicing. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

608:There is no doubt that Greek and Latin are great and handsome ornaments, but we buy them too dear. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

609:The strength of any plan depends on the time. Circumstances and things eternally shift and change. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

610:Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

611:We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

612:Marriage can be compared to a cage: birds outside it despair to enter, and birds within, to escape. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

613:Nature should have been pleased to have made this age miserable, without making it also ridiculous. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

614:Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

615:The other two are rich and noble; examples of virtue rarely make their home among people like that. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

616:What of a truth that is bounded by these mountains and is falsehood to the world that lives beyond? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

617:When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

618:If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

619:I may indeed very well happen to contradict myself; but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

620:It is putting a very high price on one's conjectures to have someone roasted alive on their account. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

621:J'accuse toute violence en l'education d'une ame tendre, qu'on dresse pour l'honneur, et la liberté. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

622:Les naturels sanguinaires à l'endroit des bestes, tesmoignent une propension naturelle à la cruauté. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

623:must not trouble the gods with our affairs; they take no heed of our angers and disputes."Plutarch.] ~ Michel de Montaigne,

624:Our religion is made to eradicate vices, instead it encourages them, covers them, and nurtures them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

625:To an atheist all writings tend to atheism: he corrupts the most innocent matter with his own venom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

626:Who ever saw a doctor use the prescription of his colleague without cutting out or adding something? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

627:A straight oar looks bent in the water. It matters not merely that we see a thing, but how we see it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

628:De waarde van dingen ligt voor ons niet zozeer in wat ze ons geven als wel in wat wij eraan uitgeven. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

629:If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was I. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

630:The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all; they will chew our meat for us. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

631:We can be knowledgeable with another man's knowledge, but we can't be wise with another man's wisdom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

632:Adrian, the Emperor, exclaimed incessantly, when dying, "That the crowd of physicians had killed him." ~ Michel de Montaigne,

633:I know that the arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of the world to the other ~ Michel de Montaigne,

634:No wonder, said an Ancient, that chance has so much power over us, since it is by chance that we live. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

635:There is no knowledge so hard to acquire as the knowledge of how to live this life well and naturally. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

636:When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

637:Para não nos deixar aflitos, a natureza fez bem em restringir ao lado de fora a nossa ação de enxergar. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

638:We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

639:We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

640:I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

641:My business is only to keep myself in motion, whilst motion pleases me; I only walk for the walk's sake. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

642:The births of all things are weak and tender and therefore we should have our eyes intent on beginnings. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

643:A good marriage (if any there be) refuses the conditions of love and endeavors to present those of amity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

644:Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, prudently, and fully is a talent that few men have. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

645:If I had even the slightest grasp upon my own faculties, I would not make essays, I would make decisions. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

646:I speak the truth not so much as I want, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

647:Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

648:No man divulges his revenue, or at least which way it comes in: but every one publishes his acquisitions. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

649:The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learnt to die has forgot to serve. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

650:There is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is managed by order, method, and discipline. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

651:The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man persuades another man to believe. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

652:All passions that allow themselves to be savored and digested are only mediocre." -from "Of sadness ~ Michel de Montaigne,

653:An ancient father says that a dog we know is better company than a man whose language we do not understand. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

654:Aslında insanlar seni hayal kırıklığına uğratmıyor. Sadece sen, yanlış insanlar üzerinde hayal kuruyorsun.. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

655:have seen no other effects in rods but to make children’s minds more remiss or more maliciously headstrong. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

656:I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

657:In my youth I studied for ostentation; later, a little to gain wisdom; now, for recreation; never for gain. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

658:I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

659:I speak the truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little more as I grow older. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

660:It is not a mind, it is not a body that we educate, but it is a man, and we must not make two parts of him. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

661:I turn my gaze inward. I fix it there and keep it busy. I look inside myself. I continually observe myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

662:Thus we should beware of clinging to vulgar opinions, and judge things by reason's way, not by popular say. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

663:Dreams are faithful interpreters of our inclinations; but there is art required to sort and understand them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

664:It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing is more miserable or more proud than man. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

665:I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but careless of death, and still more of my unfinished garden. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

666:Natural inclinations are assisted and reinforced by education, but they are hardly ever altered or overcome. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

667:The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

668:A liar would be brave toward God, while he is a coward toward men; for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

669:Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

670:Fear sometimes adds wings to the heels, and sometimes nails them to the ground, and fetters them from moving. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

671:Long life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

672:The honor we receive from those that fear us, is not honor; those respects are paid to royalty and not to me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

673:We judge a horse not only by its pace on a racecourse, but also by its walk, nay, when resting in its stable. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

674:A man must always study, but he must not always go to school: what a contemptible thing is an old abecedarian! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

675:Happy are they who can please and delight their senses with things insensate—and who can live off their death. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

676:I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

677:I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

678:Necessity reconciles and brings men together; and this accidental connection afterward forms itself into laws. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

679:Saying is one thing and doing is another; we are to consider the sermon and the preacher distinctly and apart. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

680:Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

681:There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

682:We may so seize on virtue, that if we embrace it with an overgreedy and violent desire, it may become vicious. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

683:I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

684:I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more willfully obstinate. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

685:I seek only the learning that treats of the knowledge of myself and instructs me how to die well and live well. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

686:It is not without good reason, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

687:[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

688:The conduct of our lives is the true reflection of our thoughts. —Michel de Montaigne, “Of the Education of Children ~ Gretchen Rubin,

689:We are never present with, but always beyond ourselves; fear, desire, hope, still push us on toward the future. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

690:In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

691:Marriage is like a cage one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside desperate to get out... ~ Michel de Montaigne,

692:Obstinacy and contention are common qualities, most appearing in, and best becoming, a mean and illiterate soul. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

693:One open way of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and draws out discoveries, like wine and love. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

694:To how many blockheads of my time has a cold and taciturn demeanor procured the credit of prudence and capacity! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

695:Diogenes was asked what wine he liked best; and he answered as I would have done when he said, "Somebody else's". ~ Michel de Montaigne,

696:For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and the grave; in bed, beauty before goodness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

697:The world is but a school of inquisition; it is not who shall enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

698:Truth and reason are common to everyone, and are no more his who spake them first than his who speaks them after. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

699:We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

700:If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

701:I listen with attention to the judgment of all men; but so far as I can remember, I have followed none but my own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

702:Let us permit nature to have her way: she understands her business better than we do.” —Michel de Montaigne ~ Bathroom Readers Institute,

703:Michel de Montaigne noted four centuries ago: “My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened. ~ William Ury,

704:There is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

705:Why dost thou complain of this world? It detains thee not; thy own cowardice is the cause, if thou livest in pain. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

706:Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are found and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

707:I say that male and female are cast in the same mold; except for education and habits, the difference is not great. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

708:I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

709:Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them if they will not apply themselves to me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

710:[Sweet it is during a tempest when the gales lash the waves to watch from the shore another man’s great striving.]3 ~ Michel de Montaigne,

711:the property of Man’s wit to act readily and quickly, while the property of the judgement is to be slow and poised. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

712:A learned man is not learned in all things; but a sufficient man is sufficient throughout, even to ignorance itself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

713:A man should think less of what he eats and more with whom he eats because no food is so satisfying as good company. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

714:How many quarrels, and how important, has the doubt as to the meaning of this syllable "Hoc" produced for the world! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

715:Je hay entre autres vices, cruellement la cruauté, et par nature et par jugement, comme l'extreme de tous les vices. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

716:Some, either from being glued to vice by a natural attachment, or from long habit, no longer recognize its ugliness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

717:Tis no wonder, says one of the ancients, that chance has so great a dominion over us, since it is by chance we live. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

718:Acho que os espíritos elevados são tão pouco aptos para as coisas baixas quanto os espíritos baixos para as elevadas. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

719:I leaf through books, I do not study them. What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else's. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

720:No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

721:There is nothing more unsociable than man, and nothing more sociable: unsociable by his vice, sociable by his nature. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

722:Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in show, like the statue of a public place. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

723:A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

724:How often our involuntary facial motions testify to the thoughts we were keeping secret, and betray us to those around! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

725:I aim here only at revealing myself, who will perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

726:In my opinion it is the happy living, and not, as Antisthenes said, the happy lying, in which human happiness consists. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

727:Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

728:The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

729:The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

730:All opinions in the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end, although they differ as to the means of attaining it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

731:Friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules and sways with an absolute sovereignty, can admit of no rival. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

732:I listen with attention to the judgment of all men; but so far as I can remember, I have followed none but my own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

733:Is it reasonable that even the arts should take advantage of and profit by our natural stupidity and feebleness of mind? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

734:No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

735:(...) que a morte me encontre plantando minhas couves, mas despreocupado com ela e ainda mais com minha horta inacabada. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

736:Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

737:There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance) ~ Michel de Montaigne,

738:When I am playing with my cat, who knows whether she have more sport in dallying with me than I have in gaming with her? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

739:I love a gay and sociable wisdom, and shun harshness and austerity in behaviour, holding every surly countenance suspect. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

740:Make use of life while you have it. Whether you have lived enough depends upon yourself, not on the number of your years. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

741:The time is now proper for us to reform backward; more by dissenting than by agreeing; by differing more than by consent. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

742:We should be similarly wary of accepting common opinions; we should judge them by the ways of reason not by popular vote. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

743:Epicurus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Michel de Montaigne, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell. ~ Timothy Ferriss,

744:It is the rule of rules, and the general law of all laws, that every person should observe those of the place where he is. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

745:Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

746:there is nothing we can do longer than think, no activity to which we can devote ourselves more regularly nor more easily: ~ Michel de Montaigne,

747:Als ik mijn mening te berde breng, is dat om te laten zien hoever mijn blik reikt, niet wat de reikwijdte van de dingen is. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

748:A man of genius belongs to no period and no country. He speaks the language of nature, which is always everywhere the same. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

749:Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the extremest of all vices. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

750:If I am pressed to say why I loved him, I feel it can only be explained by replying: 'Because it was he; because it was me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

751:Kings and philosophers shit, and so do ladies. Even on the highest throne in the world, we are seated still upon our arses. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

752:Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

753:~ Michel de MontaigneThe value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them ~ Michel de Montaigne ~ Michel de Montaigne,

754:..a man may live long, yet live very little. Satisfaction in life depends not on the number of your years, but on your will. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

755:Better to be tentative than to be recklessly sure- to be an apprentice at sixty, than to present oneself as a doctor at ten. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

756:He was doubtless an understanding Fellow that said, there was no happy Marriage but betwixt a blind Wife and a deaf Husband. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

757:If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

758:If only talking to oneself did not look mad, no day would go by without my being heard growling to myself. - you silly shit! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

759:I know no marriages which fail and come to grief more quickly than those which are set on foot by beauty and amorous desire. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

760:It is the part of cowardice, not of courage, to go and crouch in a hole under a massive tomb, to avoid the blows of fortune. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

761:The pleasantest things in the world are pleasant thoughts, and the great art of life is to have as many of them as possible. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

762:Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

763:I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that tied them together. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

764:is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing is more miserable or more proud than man."Nat. Hist., ii. 7.] ~ Michel de Montaigne,

765:Livet består av en del galskap, og en del visdom; den som bare skriver ærbodig og konvensjonelt, utelater mer enn halvparten. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

766:Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

767:All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

768:Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.” —Michel de Montaigne, February 28,1533–September 13, 1592 ~ Cindy Gerard,

769:The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbors, causeth a war to follow between Princes. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

770:The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

771:Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

772:We seem ambitious God's whole work to undo. ...With new diseases on ourselves we war, And with new physic, a worse engine far. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

773:For there is no air that men so greedily draw in, that diffuses itself so soon, and that penetrates so deep as that of license. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

774:I look upon the too good opinion that man has of himself, as the nursing mother of all false opinions, both public and private. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

775:It is quite normal to see good intentions, when not carried out with moderation, urging men to actions which are truly vicious. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

776:Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

777:And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

778:Certainly man is a remarkably vain, variable, and elusive subject.10 It is hard to base any constant, uniform judgment upon him. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

779:If a man has no heart for either living or dying; if he has no will either to resist or to run away: what are we to do with him? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

780:It is equally pointless to weep because we won't be alive a hundred years from now as that we were not here a hundred years ago. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

781:Let death take me planting my cabbages, indifferent to him, and still less of my garden not being finished. (tr. Charles Cotton) ~ Michel de Montaigne,

782:The desire for riches is more sharpened by their use than by their need. Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

783:We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

784:Bundan sonraki halim ancak yarım bir varlık olacak; ben artık o ben olmayacağım. Gün geçtikçe kendimden ayrılıyor, uzaklaşıyorum. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

785:I moreover affirm that our wisdom itself, and wisest consultations, for the most part commit themselves to the conduct of chance. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

786:Is there a polity better ordered, the offices better distributed, and more inviolably observed and maintained, than that of bees? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

787:It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

788:Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.” —Michel de Montaigne, February 28,1533–September 13, 1592 ~ Cindy Gerard,

789:Sokrates'e birisi için, seyahat onu hiç değiştirmedi, demişler. O da: Gayet tabii, çünkü kendisini de beraber götürmüştür, demiş. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

790:Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener. The latter must prepare to receive it according to the motion it takes. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

791:We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe, we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

792:When a Roman was returning from a trip, he used to send someone ahead to let his wife know, so as not to surprise her in the act. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

793:Women are not entirely wrong when they reject the moral rules proclaimed in society, since it is we men alone who have made them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

794:I honor most those to whom I show least honor; and where my soul moves with great alacrity, I forget the proper steps of ceremony. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

795:there is nothing in the whole world madder than bringing matters down to the measure of our own capacities and potentialities. How ~ Michel de Montaigne,

796:Were I to live my life over again, I should live it just as I have done. I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

797:God defend me from being an honest man according to the description which every day I see made by each man to his own glorification ~ Michel de Montaigne,

798:The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

799:There never were, in the world, two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

800:This idea is more surely understood by interrogation; WHAT DO I KNOW? which I bear as my motto with the emblem of a pair of scales. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

801:Every period of life has its peculiar prejudices; whoever saw old age, that did not applaud the past, and condemn the present times? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

802:It costs an unreasonable woman no more to pass over one reason than another; they cherish themselves most where they are most wrong. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

803:Sorry the man, to my mind, who has not in his own home a place to be all by himself, to pay his court privately to himself, to hide! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

804:Hvor grotesk er ikke et vesen som foler avsky for sin egen person, som blir nedtrykt av sine gleder og ser på seg selv som en ulykke! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

805:If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

806:In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge; of judgement and virtue, little news. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

807:There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

808:We must reserve a back shop all our own entirely free, in which to establish our real liberty and our principal retreat and solitude. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

809:When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; his accusations of himself are always believed; his praises never. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

810:Es ar nodomu piejaucu nāvei nedudz rūgtuma, lai, ņemot vērā tās pieejamību, kavētu jūs pārāk alkatīgi un nesaprātīgi tiekties pēc tās. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

811:I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

812:If faces were not alike, we could not distinguish men from beasts; if they were not different, we could not tell one man from another. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

813:I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

814:Our speech has its weaknesses and its defects, like all the rest. Most of the occasions for the troubles of the world are grammatical. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

815:Authors communicate with the people by some special extrinsic mark; I am the first to do so by my entire being, as Michel de Montaigne. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

816:If health and a fair day smile upon me, I am a very good fellow; if a corn trouble my toe, I am sullen, out of humor, and inaccessible. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

817:If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions; but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

818:I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly. ~ Michel de Montaigne, Essais, Book I, Ch. 9, (1595),

819:It is as though our very touch bore infection: things which in themselves are good and beautiful are corrupted by our handling of them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

820:It is indeed the boundary of life, beyond which we are not to pass; which the law of nature has pitched for a limit not to be exceeded. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

821:Princes give mee sufficiently, if they take nothing from me, and doe me much good, if they doe me no hurt: it is all I require of them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

822:To say less of yourself than is true is stupidity, not modesty. To pay yourself less than you are worth is cowardice and pusillanimity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

823:For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

824:O human creature,you are the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and all in all, the fool of the farce. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

825:The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

826:A person is bound to lose when he talks about himself; if he belittles himself, he is believed; if he praises himself, he isn't believed. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

827:Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

828:I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

829:Man is indeed an object miraculously vain, various and wavering. It is difficult to found a judgement on him which is steady and uniform. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

830:Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

831:Glory consists of two parts: the one in setting too great a value upon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

832:If you walk on stilts, you're still walking on your feet. If you sit on the highest throne in the world, you're still sitting on your ass. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

833:The first distinction among men, and the first consideration that gave one precedence over another, was doubtless the advantage of beauty. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

834:There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

835:Truly it is reasonable to make a great distinction between the faults that come from our weakness and those that come from our wickedness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

836:Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

837:And if nobody reads me, shall I have wasted my time, when I have beguiled so many idle hours with such pleasant and profitable reflections? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

838:Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

839:Not only does the wind of accidents stir me according to its blowing, but I am also stirred and troubled by the instability of my attitude. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

840:There is not one of us that would not be worse than kings, if so continually corrupted as they are with a sort of vermin called flatterers. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

841:If love and ambition should be in equal balance, and come to jostle with equal force, I make no doubt but that the last would win the prize. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

842:If someone presses me to say why I loved him, I feel that I cannot express it other than by answering, 'Because it was he, because it was I. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

843:No man dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours, than that which was before your birth, and concerneth you no more. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

844:Satiety comes of too frequent repetition and he who will not give himself leisure to be thirsty can never find the true pleasure of drinking ~ Michel de Montaigne,

845:The most regular and most perfect soul in the world has but too much to do to keep itself upright from being overthrown by its own weakness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

846:If I can, I shall keep my death from saying anything that my life has not already said." -from "That intention is judge of our actions ~ Michel de Montaigne,

847:No spirited mind remains within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength; it has impulses beyond its power of achievement. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

848:The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

849:To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

850:To distract myself from tiresome thoughts, I have only to resort to books; they easily draw my mind to themselves and away from other things. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

851:When a man is commonplace in discussion yet valued for what he writes that shows that his talents lie in his borrowed sources not in himself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

852:Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet - the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

853:Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

854:Between ourselves, there are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

855:In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection; otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

856:Man (in good earnest) is a marvellous vain, fickle, and unstable subject, and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

857:Oh, a friend! How true is that old saying, that the enjoyment of one is sweeter and more necessary than that of the elements of water and fire! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

858:To make judgements about great and lofty things, a soul of the same stature is needed; otherwise we ascribe to them that vice which is our own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

859:The pettiest and slightest nuisances are the most acute; and as small letters hurt and tire the eyes most, so do trifling matters sting us most. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

860:The religion of my doctor or my lawyer cannot matter. That consideration has nothing in common with the functions of the friendship they owe me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

861:Obstinacy and dogmatism are the surest signs of stupidity. Is there anything more confident, resolute, disdainful, grave and serious than an ass? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

862:The first lessons with which we should irrigate his mind should be those which teach him to know himself, and to know how to die ... and to live. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

863:The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, and with good reason; that passion alone, in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents ~ Michel de Montaigne,

864:I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided if greater pains be the consequence, and pains to be coveted that will terminate in greater pleasures. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

865:Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

866:The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold. The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

867:When I am attached by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

868:When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

869:Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

870:[Folly never thinks it has enough, even when it obtains what it desires, but Wisdom is happy with what is to hand and is never vexed with itself.]3 ~ Michel de Montaigne,

871:Friendship on the contrary is enjoyed in proportion to our desire: since it is a matter of the mind, with our souls being purified by practising it ~ Michel de Montaigne,

872:I myself am more ready to distort a fine saying in order to patch it on to me than to distort the thread of my argument to go in search of one. [A] ~ Michel de Montaigne,

873:Kjærligheten er en lidenskap som blander et ganske lite kvantum solid substans sammen med et langt storre kvantum forfengelighet og feberfantasier. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

874:of countering it if that had been the only factor, since all non-rational inborn tendencies are a kind of disease which ought to be fought against. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

875:The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle and without eccentricity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

876:The most beautiful lives, to my mind,are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle, and without eccentricity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

877:The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

878:Vi er bare oppfinnsomme når det gjelder å mishandle oss selv, det er det virkelige bytte for vår åndskraft - et farlig redskap når det er i uorden! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

879:We are entirely made up of bits and pieces, woven together so diversely and so shapelessly that each one of them pulls its own way at every moment. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

880:And I loathe people who find it harder to put up with a gown askew than with a soul askew and who judge a man by his bow, his bearing and his boots. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

881:The receipts of cookery are swelled to a volume, but a good stomach excels them all; to which nothing contributes more than industry and temperance. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

882:When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books.They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

883:Faccio dire agli altri quello che non posso dire altrettanto bene, sia per insufficienza del mio linguaggio sia per insufficienza del mio sentimento. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

884:I set forth notions that are human and my own, simply as human notions considered in themselves, not as determined and decreed by heavenly ordinance. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

885:sixteenth-century philosopher Michel de Montaigne once wrote, “When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not playing with me rather than I with her? ~ Michio Kaku,

886:The most certain sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

887:The plague of man is the opinion of knowledge. That is why ignorance is so recommended by our religion as a quality suitable to belief and obedience. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

888:The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly; its grandeur does not exercise itself in grandeur, but in mediocrity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

889:The way of truth is one and artless: the way of private gain and success in such affairs as we are entrusted with is double, uneven and fortuitous. I ~ Michel de Montaigne,

890:I admire the assurance and confidence everyone has in himself, whereas there is hardly anything I am sure I know or that I dare give my word I can do. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

891:Si on me presse de dire pourquoi je l'aimais, je sens que cela ne se peut exprimer, qu'en répondant: « Parce que c'était lui; parce que c'était moi. » ~ Michel de Montaigne,

892:There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

893:There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

894:We easily enough confess in others an advantage of courage, strength, experience, activity, and beauty; but an advantage in judgment we yield to none. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

895:We take our fetters with us; our freedom is not total: we still turn our gaze towards the things we have left behind; our imagination is full of them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

896:We wake sleeping, and sleep waking. I do not see so clearly in my sleep; but as to my being awake, I never found it clear enough and free from clouds. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

897:A man should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey, and above all things look he have then nothing to do but with himself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

898:For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

899:No matter that we may mount on stilts, we still must walk on our own legs. And on the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

900:We are nothing but ceremony; ceremony carries us away, and we leave the substance of things; we hang on to the branches and abandon the trunk and body. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

901:A father is very miserable who has no other hold on his children's affection than the need they have of his assistance, if that can be called affection. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

902:Biz pek şaşkın varlıklarız: Filanca hayatını işsiz güçsüz geçirdi, deriz; bugün hiçbir şey yapmadım, deriz. -Bir şey yapmadım da ne demek? Yaşadınız ya! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

903:If I were a maker of books I should compile a register, with comments, of different deaths. He who should teach people to die, would teach them to live. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

904:The way of truth is one and artless; the way of private gain and success...is double, uneven, and fortuitous.' -On the Useful and the Honourable. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

905:This, reader, is an honest book...I want to appear in my simple, natural and everyday dress, without strain or artifice; for it is myself that I portray ~ Michel de Montaigne,

906:To die is not to play a part in society; it is the act of a single person. Let us live and laugh among our friends; let us die and sulk among strangers. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

907:We every day and every hour say things of another that we might more properly say of ourselves, could we but apply our observations to our own concerns. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

908:Whatever the Benefits of Fortune are , they yet require a Palate fit to relish and taste them; 'Tis Fruition, and not Possession, that renders us Happy. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

909:A good marriage ... is a sweet association in life: full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of useful and solid services and mutual obligations. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

910:A noble heart should not belie its thoughts; it wants to reveal itself even to its inmost depths. There everything is good, at least everything is human. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

911:İstediğimiz kadar yüksek duvarlara çıkalım, yine kendi bacaklarımızla yürüyeceğiz. Dünyanın en yüksek tahtına da çıksak, yine kendi kıçımızla oturacağız. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

912:Peoples nurtured on freedom and self-government judge any other form of polity to be deformed and unnatural. Those who are used to monarchy do the same . ~ Michel de Montaigne,

913:The body enjoys a great share in our being, and has an eminent place in it. Its structure and composition, therefore, are worthy of proper consideration. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

914:But the touch or company of any man whatsoever stirreth up their heat, which in their solitude was hushed and quiet, and lay as cinders raked up in ashes. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

915:Difficulty is a coin which the learned conjure with so as not to reveal the vanity of their studies and which human stupidity is keen to accept in payment ~ Michel de Montaigne,

916:There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

917:There is nothing of evil in life for him who rightly comprehends that death is no evil; to know how to die delivers us from all subjection and constraint. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

918:To learn that we have said or done a foolish thing, that is nothing; we must learn that we are nothing but fools, a far broader and more important lesson. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

919:A man never speaks of himself without losing something. What he says in his disfavor is always beleived, but when he commends himself, he arouses mistrust. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

920:I am not at all sure whether I would not much rather have given birth to one perfectly formed son by commerce with the Muses than by commerce with my wife. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

921:Some men seem remarkable to the world in whom neither their wives nor their valets saw anything extraordinary. Few men have been admired by their servants. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

922:We are all of us richer than we think we are; but we are taught to borrow and to beg, and brought up more to make use of what is another's than of our own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

923:It is no hard matter to get children; but after they are born, then begins the trouble, solicitude, and care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

924:My home...It is my retreat and resting place from wars, I try to keep this corner as a haven against the tempest outside, as I do another corner in my soul. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

925:This emperor was arbiter of the whole world at nineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty before he could be fit to determine a dispute about a gutter. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

926:Man is the sole animal whose nudities offend his own companions, and the only one who, in his natural actions, withdraws and hides himself from his own kind. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

927:Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

928:Whoever will imagine a perpetual confession of ignorance, a judgment without leaning or inclination, on any occasion whatever, hasa conception of Pyrrhonism. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

929:As Michel de Montaigne observed, "The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced." p 233 ~ Gretchen Rubin,

930:I do not know whether I would not like much better to have produced one perfectly formed child by intercourse with the muses than by intercourse with my wife. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

931:I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

932:Now there cannot be first principles for men, unless the Divinity has revealed them; all the rest--beginning, middle, and end--isnothing but dreams and smoke. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

933:After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to the spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the slaughter of men, to the gladiators. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

934:Experience stands on its own dunghill in medicine, and reason yields it place. Medicine has always professed experience to be the touchstone of its operations. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

935:Poetry reproduces an indefinable mood that is more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful all naked, alive, and panting, as she is here in Virgil. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

936:The land of marriage has this peculiarity: that strangers are desirous of inhabiting it, while its natural inhabitants would willingly be banished from thence. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

937:The most useful and honorable science and occupation for a woman is the science of housekeeping. I know some that are miserly, very few that are good managers. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

938:There are few things on which we can pass a sincere judgement, because there are few things in which we have not, in one way or another, a particular interest. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

939:Women are not altogether in the wrong when they refuse the rules of life prescribed to the World, for men only have established them and without their consent. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

940:As conversation with men is wonderfully helpful, so is a visit to foreign lands...to whet and sharpen our wits by rubbing them upon those of others."--Montaigne ~ Michel de Montaigne,

941:Det er en kjedelig uvane som særlig går ut over damene, å måtte låne ut leppene til hvem som helst som har tre tjenere på slep, uansett hvor frastotende han er. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

942:It is a small soul, buried beneath the weight of affairs, that does not know how to get clean away from them, that cannot put them aside and pick them up again. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

943:Since philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in it? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

944:that it was an advantage to him to be interrupted in speaking, and that his adversaries were afraid to nettle him, lest his anger should redouble his eloquence. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

945:Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it; reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

946:So much din from so many philosophical brainboxes! Trust in your philosophy now! Boast that you are the one who has found the lucky bean in your festive pudding! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

947:There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

948:I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

949:I thought of the words of the Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne. "If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I. ~ Josh Lanyon,

950:An able reader often discovers in other people's writings perfections beyond those that the author put in or perceived, and lends them richer meanings and aspects. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

951:We have so much ill fortune as inconstancy, or so much bad purpose as folly, we are not so full of evil as we are of inanity; we are not so wretched as we are base ~ Michel de Montaigne,

952:Even in the midst of compassion we feel within I know not what tart sweet titillation of malicious pleasure in seeing others suffer; children have the same feeling. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

953:I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided if greater pains be the consequence, and pains to be coveted that will terminate in greater pleasures.” —MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE ~ Anthony Robbins,

954:Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

955:I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray... I am myself the matter of my book. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

956:Laws are often made by fools, and even more often by men who fail in equity because they hate equality: but always by men, vain authorities who can resolve nothing. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

957:The daughter-in-law of Pythagoras said that a woman who goes to bed with a man ought to lay aside her modesty with her skirt, and put it on again with her petticoat ~ Michel de Montaigne,

958:If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

959:Truth for us nowadays is not what is, but what others can be brought to accept: just as we call money not only legal tender but any counterfeit coins in circulation. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

960:My errors are by now natural and incorrigible; but the good that worthy men do the public by making themselves imitable, I shall perhaps do by making myself evitable. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

961:Philosophy believes she has not made a bad use of her resources when she has bestowed on Reason sovereign mastery over our soul and authority to bridle our appetites. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

962:A man should keep for himself a little back shop, all his own, quite unadulterated, in which he establishes his true freedom and chief place of seclusion and solitude. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

963:The great and glorious masterpiece of men is to live to the point. All other things-to reign, to hoard, to build-are, at most, but inconsiderable props and appendages. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

964:To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value, is pusillanimity and cowardice. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

965:Health is a precious thing, and the only one, in truth, meriting that a man should lay out not only his time, sweat, labor and goods, but also life itself to obtain it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

966:Laws are maintained in credit, not because they are essentially just, but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

967:Men have seemed miraculous to the world, in whom their wives and valets have never seen anything even worth noticing. Few men have been admired by their own households. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

968:Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

969:We must learn to suffer what we cannot evade; our life, like the harmony of the world, is composed of contrary things, and one part is no less necessary than the other. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

970:We perceive no charms that are not sharpened, puffed out, and inflated by artifice. Those which glide along naturally and simply easily escape a sight so gross as ours. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

971:We spoke so long ago of Michel de Montaigne, of how marriage was like a gilded cage. But Montaigne was wrong. Marriage can set you free of the cage if you find the right person. ~ Fiona Paul,

972:Getting married is very much like going to a restaurant with friends. You order what you want then when you see what the other person has, you wish you had ordered that. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

973:Glory and curiosity are the scourges of the soul; the last prompts us to thrust our noses into everything, the other forbids us to leave anything doubtful and undecided. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

974:If your doctor does not think it good for you to sleep, to drink wine, or to eat of a particular dish, do not worry; I will find you another who will not agree with him. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

975:Não há uma única coisa tão vazia e carente quanto tu, que abraças o universo: és o escrutador sem conhecimento, o magistrado sem jurisdição e, ao final, o bobo da farsa. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

976:Our truth of nowadays is not what is, but what others can be convinced of; just as we call "money" not only that which is legal, but also any counterfeit that will pass. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

977:People of our time are so formed for agitation and ostentation that goodness, moderation, equability, constancy, and such quiet and obscure qualities are no longer felt. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

978:There is nothing so noble and so right as to play our human life well and fitly, nor anything so difficult to learn as how to livethis life well and according to Nature. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

979:We cannot do without it, and yet we disgrace and vilify the same. It may be compared to a cage, the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair to get out. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

980:Eloquence is an engine invented to manage and wield at will the fierce democracy, and, like medicine to the sick, is only employed in the paroxysms of a disordered state. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

981:Knowledge is an excellent drug; but no drug has virtue enough to preserve itself from corruption and decay, if the vessel be tainted and impure wherein it is put to keep. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

982:To behave rightly, we ourselves should never lay a hand on our servants as long as our anger lasts. Things will seem different to us when we have quieted and cooled down. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

983:A man may by custom fortify himself against pain, shame, and suchlike accidents; but as to death, we can experience it but once, and are all apprentices when we come to it ~ Michel de Montaigne,

984:When I was young, beautiful ancient statues were castrated, so that the eye might not be corrupted.... Nothing was gained, unless horses and asses had also been castrated. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

985:If others examined themselves attentively, as I do, they would find themselves, as I do, full of inanity and nonsense. Get rid of it I cannot without getting rid of myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

986:Is it not enough to make me come back to life out of spite, to have someone who spat in my face while I existed come and rub my feet when I am beginning to exist no longer? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

987:It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. A spirited mind never stops within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

988:No one suffers long, save by his own fault. If a man has no heart for either living or dying; if he has no will either to resist or to run away: what are we to do with him? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

989:No two men ever judged alike of the same thing, and it is impossible to find two opinions exactly similar, not only in different men but in the same men at different times. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

990:Platon, Devlet’inde akılca ve ruhça zayıf olanlara tartışmayı yasak etmiştir. Doğru dürüst adım atıp yürümesini bilmeyen bir insanla gerçeği aramaya çıkmanın anlamı var mı? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

991:The general order of things that takes care of fleas and moles also takes care of men, if they will have the same patience that fleas and moles have, to leave it to itself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

992:And therefore, Reader, I myself am the subject of my book: it is not reasonable that you should employ your leisure on a topic so frivolous and so vain. Therefore, Farewell. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

993:Handling and use by able minds give value to a language, not so much by innovating as by filling it out with more vigorous and varied services, by stretching and bending it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

994:How often, being moved under a false cause, if the person offending makes a good defense and presents us with a just excuse, are we angry against truth and innocence itself? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

995:We are nearer neighbors to ourselves than the whiteness of snow or the weight of stones are to us: if man does not know himself, how should he know his functions and powers? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

996:The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

997:Benim bütün çabam kimseye muhtaç olmadan yaşamaktır. İnsanlar hiçbir şeyimi almazlarsa, bana çok şey vermiş olurlar. Hiçbir kötülük etmezlerse, yeterince iyilik etmiş olurlar. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

998:I don't break the law* made for crooks, when I take away my own property - thus I am not obliged to conform to the law made for murderers when I deprive myself of my own life. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

999:I want us to be doing things, prolonging life's duties as much as we can. I want death to find me planting my cabbages, neither worrying about it nor the unfinished gardening. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1000:Nature clasps all her creatures in a universal embrace; there is not one of them which she has not plainly furnished with all means necessary to the conservation of its being. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1001:Onun için kalabalıktan kaçmak yetmez, bir yerden başka bir yere gitmekle iş bitmez. İçimizdeki kalabalıktan kurtulmamız, kendimizi kendimizden koparmamız gerek, böyle anlarda. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1002:The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world; yet all this is but One. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1003:It is for little souls, that truckle under the weight of affairs, not to know how clearly to disengage themselves, and not to know how to lay them aside and take them up again. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1004:It has never occurred to me to wish for empire or royalty, nor for the eminence of those high and commanding fortunes. My aim lies not in that direction; I love myself too well. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1005:It is in vain that we get upon stilts, for once on them, it is still with our legs that we must walk. And on the highest throne in the world we are still sitting on our own ass. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1006:The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.    ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1007:Vainglory and curiosity are the twin scourges of our souls. The former makes us stick our noses into everything: the latter forbids us to leave anything unresolved or undecided. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1008:A wellborn mind that is practiced in dealing with people makes itself thoroughly agreeable by itself. Art is nothing else but thelist and record of the productions of such minds. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1009:Man will rise, if God by exception lends him a hand; he will rise by abandoning and renouncing his own means, and letting himselfbe raised and uplifted by purely celestial means. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1010:From these articles of my confession you can imagine others to my discredit. But whatever I make myself out to be, provided that I show myself as I am, I am fulfilling my purpose. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1011:I am much afraid that we shall have very greatly hastened the decline and ruin of the New World by our contagion, and that we willhave sold it our opinions and our arts very dear. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1012:If you do not know how to die, never trouble yourself; nature will in a moment fully and sufficiently instruct you; she will exactly do that business for you; take no care for it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1013:Para mim, nenhum prazer tem gosto sem comunicação. Não me acorre um único pensamento espirituoso sem que me sinta agastado de tê-Io produzido sozinho, não tendo a quem o oferecer. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1014:Persons of mean understandings, not so inquisitive, nor so well instructed, are made good Christians, and by reverence and obedience, implicity believe, and abide by their belief. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1015:Plenty and indigence depend upon the opinion every one has of them; and riches, like glory of health, have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleaded to lend them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1016:We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1017:And therefore, Reader, I myself am the subject of my book: it is not reasonable that you should employ your leisure on a topic so frivolous and so vain. Therefore, Farewell: ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1018:I consider it equal injustice to set our heart against natural pleasures and to set our heart too much on them. We should neither pursue them, nor flee them; we should accept them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1019:That father may truly be said miserable that holdeth the affection of his children tied unto him by no other means than by the need they have of his help or want of his assistance, ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1020:Pride and curiosity are the two scourges of our souls. The latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved and undecided. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1021:Socrates, who was a perfect model in all great qualities, ... hit on a body and face so ugly and so incongruous with the beauty of his soul, he who was so madly in love with beauty. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1022:And one might therefore say of me that in this book I have only made up a bunch of other people's flowers, and that of my own I have only provided the string that ties them together. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1023:Assaulted as I am by ambition, covetousness, rashness and superstition, and having such enemies to life as that within me, should I start wondering about the motions of the Universe? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1024:If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1025:The knowledge of courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study. It is like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and an inclination to love one another at the first sight. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1026:In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1027:T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things might certainly conclude as to both the future and the past. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1028:Examples teach us that in military affairs, and all others of a like nature, study is apt to enervate and relax the courage of man, rather than to give strength and energy to the mind. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1029:I, who am king of the matter I treat, and who owe an accounting for it to no one, do not for all that believe myself in all I write. I often hazard sallies of my mind which I mistrust. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1030:Travelling through the world produces a marvellous clarity in the judgment of men. We are all of us confined and enclosed within ourselves, and see no farther than the end of our nose. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1031:Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgement on him." -from "By diverse means we arrive at the same end ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1032:We owe subjection and obedience to all our kings, whether good or bad, alike, for that has respect unto their office; but as to esteem and affection, these are only due to their virtue. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1033:A volunteer, you assign yourself specific roles and risks according to your judgement of their brilliance and importance, and you see when life itself may be justifiably devoted to them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1034:How many worthy men have we known to survive their own reputation, who have seen and suffered the honor and glory most justly acquired in their youth, extinguished in their own presence? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1035:Most men are rich in borrowed sufficiency: a man may very well say a good thing, give a good answer, cite a good sentence, without at all seeing the force of either the one or the other. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1036:The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure; neither the greatest captains nor the greatest philosophers have disdained the use or science of eating well. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1037:The world is but a perennial movement. All things in it are in constant motion-the earth, the rocks of the Caucasus, the pyramids of Egypt-both with the common motion and with their own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1038:Who is it that does not voluntarily exchange his health, his repose, and his very life for reputation and glory? The most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes current among us. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1039:It is the part of cowardliness, and not of virtue, to seek to squat itself in some hollow lurking hole, or to hide herself under some massive tomb, thereby to shun the strokes of fortune. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1040:Of the opinions of philosophy I most gladly embrace those that are most solid, that is to say, most human and most our own; my opinions, in conformity with my conduct, are low and humble. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1041:We do not marry for ourselves, whatever we say; we marry just as much or more for our posterity, for our family. The practice and benefit of marriage concerns our race very far beyond us. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1042:If others surpass you in knowledge, in charm, in strength, in fortune, you have other causes to blame for it; but if you yield tothem in stoutness of heart you have only yourself to blame. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1043:It is an injustice that an old, broken, half-dead father should enjoy alone, in a corner of his hearth, possessions that would suffice for the advancement and maintenance of many children. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1044:True it is that she who escapeth safe and unpolluted from out the school of freedom, giveth more confidence of herself than she who comet sound out of the school of severity and restraint. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1045:What a prodigious conscience must that be that can be at quiet within itself whilst it harbors under the same roof, with so agreeing and so calm a society, both the crime and the judge? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1046:He that had never seen a river imagined the first he met to be the sea; and the greatest things that have fallen within our knowledge we conclude the extremes that nature makes of the kind. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1047:For among other things he had been counseled to bring me to love knowledge and duty by my own choice, without forcing my will, and to educate my soul entirely through gentleness and freedom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1048:I do not think that there is so much wretchedness in us as vanity; we are not so much wicked as daft; we are not so much full of evil as of inanity; we are not so much pitiful as despicable. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1049:If you have known how to compose your life, you have done a great deal more than the person who knows how to compose a book. You have done more than the one who has taken cities and empires. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1050:Let us never allow ourselves to be carried away so completely by pleasure that we fail to recall from time to time in how many ways our happiness is prey to death and threatened by its grip. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1051:Others form man; I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed, whom I should really make very different from whathe is if I had to fashion him over again. But now it is done. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1052:Some impose upon the world that they believe that which they do not; others, more in number, make themselves believe that they believe, not being able to penetrate into what it is to believe. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1053:The vulgar and common esteem is seldom happy in hitting right; and I am much mistaken if, amongst the writings of my time, the worst are not those which have most gained the popular applause. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1054:What a wonderful thing it is that drop of seed, from which we are produced, bears in itself the impressions, not only of the bodily shape, but of the thoughts and inclinations of our fathers! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1055:İnsanın doğuşunu görmekten herkes kaçar ama ölümünü görmeye hep koşa koşa gideriz. İnsanı öldürmek için gün ışığında, geniş meydanlar ararız ama onu yaratmak için karanlık köşelere gizleniriz. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1056:One of my favorite writers is Michel de Montaigne. My wife gave me a beautiful 17th-century edition of Montaigne's essays translated by John Florio. That's probably my most precious possession. ~ Stephen Greenblatt,

1057:Rhetoric flourished in Rome when their affairs were in their worst state and when they were shattered by the storms of civil war, just as a field left untamed bears the most flourishing weeds. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1058:We ought to love temperance for itself, and in obedience to God who has commanded it and chastity; but what I am forced to by catarrhs, or owe to the stone, is neither chastity nor temperance. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1059:When Socrates, after being relieved of his irons, felt the relish of the itching that their weight had caused in his legs, he rejoiced to consider the close alliance between pain and pleasure. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1060:As great enmities spring from great friendships, and mortal distempers from vigorous health, so do the most surprising and the wildest frenzies from the high and lively agitations of our souls. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1061:Have you been able to think out and manage your own life? You have done the greatest task of all.... All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1062:Combien de choses nous servoyent hier d’articles de foy, qui nous sont fables aujourd’huy? How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which today are fables for us? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1063:The bitterness of the potion, and the abhorrence of the patient are necessary circumstances to the operation. It must be something to trouble and disturb the stomach that must purge and cure it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1064:how I would hate the reputation of being clever at writing but stupid and useless at everything else! I would rather be stupid at both than to choose to employ my good qualities as badly as that. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1065:I find no quality so easy for a man to counterfeit as devotion, though his life and manner are not conformable to it; the essence of it is abstruse and occult, but the appearances easy and showy. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1066:In truth, knowledge is a great and very useful quality; those who despise it give evidence enough of their stupidity. Yet I do not set its value at that extreme measure that some attribute to it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1067:I seek in books only to give myself pleasure by honest amusement; or if I study, I seek only the learning that treats of the knowledge of myself and instructs me in how to die well and live well. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1068:It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my reason. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1069:We are all lumps, and of so various and inform a contexture, that every piece plays, every moment, its own game, and there is as much difference betwixt us and ourselves as betwixt us and others. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1070:I see several animals that live so entire and perfect a life, some without sight, others without hearing: who knows whether to us also one, two, or three, or many other senses, may not be wanting? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1071:It is a stupid presumption to go about despising and condemning as false anything that seems to us improbable; this is a common fault in those who think they have more intelligence than the crowd. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1072:The more simply we entrust ourself to Nature the more wisely we do so. Oh what a soft and delightful pillow, and what a sane one on which to rest a well-schooled head, are ignorance and unconcern. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1073:Vice leaves repentance in the soul, like an ulcer in the flesh, which is always scratching and lacerating itself; for reason effaces all other griefs and sorrows, but it begets that of repentance. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1074:I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1075:If to take up books were to take them in, and if to see them were to consider them, and to run through them were to grasp them, I should be wrong to make myself out quite as ignorant as I say I am. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1076:Why do you judge a man when he is all wrapped up like a parcel? He is letting us see only such attributes as do not belong to him while hiding the only ones which enable us to judge his real worth. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1077:No one but yourself knows whether you are cowardly and cruel, or loyal and devout; others do not see you; they surmise you by uncertain conjectures; they perceive not so much your nature as your art. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1078:The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice, atheism, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1079:The wise man should withdraw his soul within, out of the crowd, and keep it in freedom and power to judge things freely; but as for externals, he should wholly follow the accepted fashions and forms. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1080:Human understanding is marvellously enlightened by daily conversation with men, for we are, otherwise, compressed and heaped up in ourselves, and have our sight limited to the length of our own noses. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1081:Nature has made us a present of a broad capacity for entertaining ourselves apart, and often calls us to do so, to teach us that we owe ourselves in part to society, but in the best part to ourselves. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1082:"Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation." -If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he and I was I. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1083:Every one is well or ill at ease, according as he finds himself! not he whom the world believes, but he who believes himself to be so, is content; and in him alone belief gives itself being and reality ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1084:If I am to serve as an instrument of deceit, at least let it be with a clear conscience. I do not want to be considered either so affectionate or so loyal a servant as to be found fit to betray anyone. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1085:In order always to learn something from others (which is the finest school there can be), I observe in my travels this practice: I always steer those with whom I talk back to the things they know best. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1086:There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1087:Aesop, that great man, saw his master making water as he walked. "What!" he said, "Must we void ourselves as we run?" Use our timeas best we may, yet a great part of it will still be idly and ill spent. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1088:I do not portray the thing in itself. I portray the passage; not a passing from one age to another, or, as the people put it, from seven years to seven years, but from day to day, from minute to minute. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1089:It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1090:Je souhaiterais bien avoir plus parfaite intelligence des choses, mais je ne la veux pas acheter si cher qu'elle coûte. Mon dessein et de passer doucement, et non laborieusement, ce qui me reste de vie. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1091:Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice; for indeed it seems we have no other test of truth and reason than the example and pattern of the opinions and customs of the country we live in ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1092:To censure my own faults in some other person seems to me no more incongruous than to censure, as I often do, another's in myself. They must be denounced everywhere, and be allowed no place of sanctuary. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1093:God is favorable to those whom he makes to die by degrees; 'tis the only benefit of old age. The last death will be so much the less painful: it will kill but a quarter of a man or but half a one at most. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1094:That is why Bias jested with those who were going through the perils of a great storm with him and calling on the gods for help: "Shut up," he said, "so that they do not realize that you are here with me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1095:Tis well for old age that it is always accompanied with want of perception, ignorance, and a facility of being deceived. For should we see how we are used and would not acquiesce, what would become of us? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1096:La foiblesse de nostre condition, fait que les choses en leur simplicité et pureté naturelle ne puissent pas tomber en nostre usage... Nostre extreme volupté a quelque air de gemissement, et de plainte. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1097:Those sciences which govern the morals of mankind, such as Theology and Philosophy, make everything their concern: no activity is so private or so secret as to escape their attention or their jurisdiction. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1098:Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another's net. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1099:If not for that of conscience, yet at least for ambition's sake, let us reject ambition, let us disdain that thirst of honor and renown, so low and mendicant; that it makes us beg it of all sorts of people. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1100:I would rather produce my passions than brood over them at my expense; they grow languid when they have vent and expression. It is better that their point should operate outwardly than be turned against us. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1101:Whatever is preached to us, and whatever we learn, we should still remember that it is man that gives, and man that receives; it is a mortal hand that presents it to us, it is a mortal hand that accepts it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1102:The beginnings of all things are weak and tender. We must therefore be clear-sighted in the beginnings, for, as in their budding we discern not the danger, so in their full growth we perceive not the remedy. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1103:Those who shake the State are easily the first to be engulfed in its destruction. The fruits of dissension are not gathered by the one who began it: he stirs and troubles the waters for other men to fish in. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1104:Though the ancient poet in Plutarch tells us we must not trouble the gods with our affairs because they take no heed of our angers and disputes, we can never enough decry the disorderly sallies of our minds. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1105:To understand the essence and workings of insanity, Gallus Vibius strained his mind so that he tore his judgment from its seat and could never get it back again: he could boast he became mad through wisdom.1 ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1106:All things in it are in constant motion - the earth, the rocks of the caucasus, the pyramids of Egypt - both within the common motion and with their own. Stability itself is nothing but a more languid motion. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1107:'As a man who knows how to make his education into a rule of life not a means of showing off; who can control himself and obey his own principles.' The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1108:I know nothing about education except this: that the greatest and the most important difficulty known to human learning seems to lie in that area which treats how to bring up children and how to educate them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1109:Other passions have objects to flatter them, and seem to content and satisfy them for a while; there is power in ambition, pleasure in luxury, and pelf in covetousness; but envy can gain nothing but vexation. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1110:A young man ought to cross his own rules, to awake his vigor, and to keep it from growing faint and rusty. And there is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is carried on by rule and discipline. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1111:Folly is a bad quality; but not to be able to endure it, to fret and vex at it, as I do, is another sort of disease little less troublesome than folly itself; and is the thing that I will now accuse in myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1112:From books all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honourable pastime: or if I do study, I seek only that branch of learning which deals with knowing myself and which teaches me how to live and die well... ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1113:I agree that we should work and prolong the functions of life as far as we can, and hope that Death may find me planting my cabbages, but indifferent to him and still more to the unfinished state of my garden. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1114:I do not correct my first imaginings by my second--well, yes, perhaps a word or so, but only to vary, not to delete. I want to represent the course of my humors and I want people to see each part at its birth. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1115:Lay a beam between these two towers of such width as we need to walk on: there is no philosophical wisdom of such great firmness that it can give us courage to walk on it as we should if it were on the ground. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1116:We are born to inquire after truth; it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1117:What harm cause not those huge draughts or pictures which wanton youth with chalk or coals draw in each passage, wall or stairs of our great houses, whence a cruel contempt of our natural store is bred in them? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1118:Il est peu d’hommes, qui aiment la poésie, qui ne se gratifieraient plus d’être le père de l’Éneide que du plus beau garçon de Rome, et qui ne souffriraient pas plus aisément la perte de celui-ci que de l’Éneide. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1119:What is it that makes all our quarrels end in death nowadays? Whereas our fathers knew degrees of vengeance we now begin at the end and straightway talk of nothing but killing. What causes that, if not cowardice? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1120:Den ville i det minste i dromme varme opp det blod som naturen har latt i stikken, den ville loftet haken og droyet både musklene, energien og livsgleden for denne stakkaren som i full fart iler mot sin undergang. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1121:It is not reasonable that art should win the place of honor over our great and powerful mother Nature. We have so overloaded the beauty and richness of her works by our inventions that we have quite smothered her. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1122:Moreover, vulgar and casual opinions are something more than nothing in nature; and he who will not suffer himself to proceed so far, falls, peradventure, into the vice of obstinacy, to avoid that of superstition. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1123:If virtue cannot shine bright, but by the conflict of contrary appetites, shall we then say that she cannot subsist without the assistance of vice, and that it is from her that she derives her reputation and honor? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1124:I have a vocabulary all my own. I "pass the time" when it is wet and disagreeable. When it is fine I do not wish to pass it; I ruminate it and hold on to it. We should hasten over the bad, and settle upon the good. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1125:Every one of us is a hodge-podge, so shapeless and diverse in structure that each piece, each moment, plays its own game. And there is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others. I ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1126:Judgement holds in me a magisterial seat, at least it carefully tries to. It lets my feelings go their way, both hatred and friendship, even the friendship I bear myself, without being changed and corrupted by them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1127:Their [the Skeptics'] way of speaking is: "I settle nothing. . . . I do not understand it. . . . Nothing seems true that may not seem false." Their sacramental word is . . . , which is to say, I suspend my judgment. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1128:Most of our occupations are low comedy.... We must play our part duly, but as the part of a borrowed character. Of the mask and appearance we must not make a real essence, nor of what is foreign what is our very own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1129:There is the name and the thing; the name is a sound which sets a mark on and denotes the thing. The name is no part of the thing nor of the substance; it is an extraneous piece added to the thing, and outside of it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1130:We took advantage of [the Indians'] ignorance and inexperience to incline them the more easily toward treachery, lewdness, avarice, and every sort of inhumanity and cruelty, after the example and pattern of our ways. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1131:Each person calls barbarism whatever is not his or her own practice.... We may call Cannibals barbarians, in respect to the rulesof reason, but not in respect to ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1132:Petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. The smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. As small letters weary the eye most, so the smallest affairs disturb us most. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1133:The pleasure we hold in esteem for the course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our time dedicated to it; we should refuse no occasion nor omit any opportunity of drinking, and always have it in our minds. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1134:After a tongue has once got the knack of lying, it is not to be imagined how impossible almost it is to reclaim it. Whence it comes to pass, that we see some men, who are otherwise very honest, so subject to this vice. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1135:If people must be talking about me, I would have it to be truthfully and justly. I would willingly return from the next world to contradict any person who described me other than I was, although he did it to honour me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1136:The share we have in the knowledge of truth, such as it is, has not been acquired by our own powers. God has taught ushis wonderful secrets; our faith is not of our acquiring, it is purely the gift of another's bounty. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1137:My opinion is that we must lend ourselves to others and give ourselves only to ourselves. If my will happened to be prone to mortgage and attach itself, I would not last: I am too tender, both by nature and by practice. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1138:The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1139:Age imprints more wrinkles a in the mind, than it does in the face, and souls are never, or very rarely seen, that in growing old do not smell sour and musty. Man moves all together, both towards his perfection and decay. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1140:If my intentions were not to be read in my eyes and voice, I should not have survived so long without quarrels and without harm, seeing the indiscreet freedom with which I say, right or wrong, whatever comes into my head. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1141:The bees pillage the flowers here and there but they make honey of them which is all their own; it is no longer thyme or marjolaine: so the pieces borrowed from others he will transform and mix up into a work all his own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1142:Beauty is the true prerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that our sex, though naturally requiring another sort of feature, is never in its lustre but when puerile and beardless, confused and mixed with theirs. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1143:I seek in the reading of my books only to please myself by an irreproachable diversion; or if I study it is for no other science than that which treats of the knowledge of myself, and instructs me how to die and live well. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1144:It is probable that the principal credit of miracles, visions, enchantments, and such extraordinary occurrences comes from the power of imagination, acting principally upon the minds of the common people, which are softer. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1145:We imagine much more appropriately an artisan on his toilet seat or on his wife than a great president, venerable by his demeanorand his ability. It seems to us that they do not stoop from their lofty thrones even to live. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1146:I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man's estate. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1147:Who is only good that others may know it, and that he may be the better esteemed when 'tis known, who will do well but upon condition that his virtue may be known to men, is one from whom much service is not to be expected. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1148:It takes so much to be a king that he exists only as such. That extraneous glare that surrounds him hides him and conceals him from us; our sight breaks and is dissipated by it being filled and arrested by this strong light. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1149:He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1150:If each man, on hearing a wise maxim, immediately looked to see how it properly applied to him, he would find that it was not so much a pithy saying as a whiplash applied to the habitual stupidity of his faculty of judgement. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1151:Es una perfección absoluta, y como divina «la de saber disfrutar lealmente de su ser». Buscamos otras condiciones por no comprender el empleo de las nuestras, y salimos fuera de nosotros, por ignorar lo que pasa dentro. Inútil ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1152:If falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be more on equal terms. For we would consider the contrary of what the liar said to be certain. But the opposite of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite field. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1153:Seeing that the Senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must have recourse to Reason; there is no reason but must be built upon another reason: so here we are retreating backwards to infinity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1154:For I make others say what I cannot say so well,... I do not count my borrowings, but, weight them.... They are all, or very nearly all, from such famous and ancient names that they seem to identify themselves enough without me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1155:I find I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardor of dispute, I make myself submit to my adversary’s force of reason, than I am pleased with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1156:The usefulness of living lies not in duration but in what you make of it. Some have lived long and lived little. See to it while you are still here. Whether you have lived enough depends not on a count of years but on your will. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1157:Whether we are running our home or studying or hunting or following any other sport, we should go to the very boundaries of pleasure but take good care not to be involved beyond the point where it begins to be mingled with pain. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1158:Is it not better to remain in suspense than to entangle yourself in the many errors that the human fancy has produced? Is it not better to suspend your convictions than to get mixed up in these seditious and quarrelsome divisions? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1159:What am I to choose? "Choose what you please, as long as you choose." There you have a foolish answer, which seems to be the outcome, however, of all Dogmatism, which will not allow us to be ignorant of that which we are ignorant. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1160:Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope, that in a mortal subject, and in a moment, makes nothing of usurping infinity, immensity, eternity, and of supplying its masters indigence, at its pleasure, with all things he can imagine or desire! ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1161:To hear men talk of metonomies, metaphors, and allegories, and other grammar words, would not one think they signified some rare and exotic form of speaking? And yet they are phrases that come near to the babble of my chambermaid. And ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1162:It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1163:Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1164:Great authors, when they write about causes, adduce not only those they think are true but also those they do not believe in, provided they have some originality and beauty. They speak truly and usefully enough if they speak ingeniously. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1165:Kanunlar doğru oldukları için değil, kanun oldukları için yürürlükte kalırlar. Kendilerini dinletmeleri akıldışı bir güçten gelir, başka bir şeyden değil. (..) Kanunlardan daha çok, daha ağır, daha geniş haksızlıklara yol açan ne vardır? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1166:There is no virtue which does not rejoice a well-descended nature; there is a kind of I know not what congratulation in well-doing, that gives us an inward satisfaction, and a certain generous boldness that accompanies a good conscience. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1167:We find ourselves more taken with the running up and down, the games, and puerile simplicities of our children, than we do, afterward, with their most complete actions; as if we had loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1168:If any one be in rapture with his own knowledge, looking only on those below him, let him but turn his eye upward towards past ages, and his pride will be abated, when he shall there find so many thousand wits that trample him under foot. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1169:If I were a writer of books, I would compile a register, with a comment, of the various deaths of men: he who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live. —Michel de Montaigne, “That to Study Philosophy Is to Learn to Die ~ Paul Kalanithi,

1170:It needs good management to enjoy life. I enjoy it twice as much as others, for the measure of enjoyment depends on the greater or less attention that we give to it...The shorter my possession of life the deeper and fuller I must make it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1171:The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make to them; a man may live long, yet get little from life. Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will - Montaigne, Essays ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1172:The recognition of virtue is not less valuable from the lips of the man who hates it, since truth forces him to acknowledge it; and though he may be unwilling to take it into his inmost soul, he at least decks himself out in its trappings. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1173:Fortune does us neither good nor hurt; she only presents us the matter and the seed, which our soul, more powerful than she, turns and applies as she best pleases; the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1174:If I were a writer of books, I would compile a register, with a comment, of the various deaths of men: he who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live. —Michel de Montaigne, “That to Study Philosophy Is to Learn to Die” L ~ Paul Kalanithi,

1175:See the child you have,” as the saying goes, “not the child you wish you had.” In the end, I agreed with Michel de Montaigne: “The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced. ~ Gretchen Rubin,

1176:Socrates ... brought human wisdom back down from heaven, where she was wasting her time, and restored her to man.... It is impossible to go back further and lower. He did a great favor to human nature by showing how much it can do by itself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1177:Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1178:While our pulse beats and we feel emotion, let us put off the business. Things will truly seem different to us when we have quieted and cooled down. It is passion that is in command at first, it is passion that speaks, it is not we ourselves. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1179:Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1180:In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota; for my knowledge I cannot answer. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1181:Just as in habiliments it is a sign of weakness to wish to make oneself noticeable by some peculiar and unaccustomed fashion, so, in language, the quest for new-fangled phrases and little-known words comes from a puerile and pedantic ambition. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1182:Nature has with a Motherly Tenderness observed this, that the Action she has enjoyned us for our Necessity should be also pleasant to us, and invites us to them, not only by Reason, but also by Appetite: and ’tis Injustice to infringe her Laws. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1183:Neither good nor ill is done to us by Fortune: she merely offers us the matter and the seeds: our soul, more powerful than she is, can mould it or sow them as she pleases, being the only cause and mistress of our happy state or our unhappiness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1184:Retire within yourselves; but first prepare yourselves to receive yourselves there. It would be madness to trust yourselves to yourselves if you do not know how to control yourselves. There are ways of failing in solitude as well as in company. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1185:We have the pleasures suitable to our lot; let us not usurp those of greatness. Ours are more natural and all the more solid and sure for being humbler. Since we will not do so out of conscience, at least out of ambition let us reject ambition. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1186:The mind is not all that different from those dogs in Aesop which, descrying what appeared to be a corpse floating on the sea yet being unable to get at it, set about lapping up the water so as to dry out a path to it, and suffocated themselves. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1187:There is more ado to interpret interpretations than to interpret things, and more books upon books than upon any other subject; we do nothing but comment upon one another. Every place swarms with commentaries; of authors there is great scarcity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1188:Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart. If I were pressed to say why I loved him, I feel that my only reply could be: Because it was he, because it was I. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1189:Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it; and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything, to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1190:Vi gjor kanskje rett i å klandre oss selv for å frembringe noe så tåpelig som mennesket, og i å kalle akten skammelig og de organer som brukes til den, for skamdeler (mine egne er for tiden blitt så ynkelige at jeg virkelig skammer meg over dem). ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1191:Estas empanadas de lugares comunes con que tantas personas economizan su estudio, apenas sirven para asuntos comunes, y solo para mostrarnos, no para conducirnos: fruto ridículo de la ciencia, que Sócrates censura tan graciosamente en Eutidemo. Yo ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1192:I love to discourse and dispute, but it is with but few men, and for myself; for to do it as a spectacle and entertainment to great persons, and to make of a man’s wit and words competitive parade is, in my opinion, very unbecoming a man of honor. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1193:Não há nada tão belo e legítimo quanto ser um homem de forma boa e adequada, nem conhecimento tão difícil de adquirir quanto o conhecimento de como viver esta vida bem e com naturalidade; e a mais bárbara de nossas doenças é desprezar o nosso ser. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1194:Socrates and then Archesilaus used to make their pupils speak first; they spoke afterwards. 'Obest plerumque iss discere volunt authoritas eorum qui docent.' [For those who want to learn, the obstacle can often be the authority of those who teach] ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1195:Fortune does us neither good nor hurt; she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases; being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1196:I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and reason, as the worst of all the vices. But then I am so soft in this that I cannot seea chicken's neck wrung without distress, and cannot bear to hear the squealing of a hare between the teeth of my hounds. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1197:Let what I here set down meet with correction or applause, it shall be of equal welcome and utility to me [...]And yet, always submitting to the authority of their censure, which has an absolute power over me, I thus rashly venture at everything. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1198:The contradictions of judgments, then, neither offend nor alter, they only rouse and exercise me. We evade correction, whereas we ought to offer and present ourselves to it, especially when it appears in the form of conference, and not of authority. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1199:We endeavor more that men should speak of us, than how and what they speak, and it sufficeth us that our name run in men's mouths, in what manner soever. It stemma that to be known is in some sort to have life and continuance in other men's keeping. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1200:I know not what quintessence of all this mixture, which, seizing my whole will, carried it to plunge and lose itself in his, and that having seized his whole will, brought it back with equal concurrence and appetite to plunge and lose itself in mine. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1201:It makes me hate accepting things that are probable when they are held up before me as infallibly true. I prefer these words which tone down and modify the hastiness of our propositions: "Perhaps, In some sort, Some, They say, I think," and the like. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1202:Om te oordelen over grote en verheven zaken, moet je zelf op dat niveau staan, anders projecteer je er je eigen gebreken op. In het water lijkt een rechte roeispaan krom. Het is niet alleen van belang of je een ding ziet, maar vooral hoe je het ziet. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1203:There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1204:Books are pleasant, but if by being over-studious we impair our health and spoil our good humour, two of the best things we have, let us give it over. I, for my part, am one of those who think no fruit derived from them can recompense so great a loss. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1205:Perhaps it is not without reason that we attribute facility in belief and conviction to simplicity and ignorance; for it seems to me I once learned that belief was sort of an impression made on our mind, and that the softer it is the less resistant t. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1206:We are never at home, we are always beyond. Fear, desire, hope, project us toward the future and steal from us the consideration of what is, to busy us with what will be, even when we shall no longer be." -from "Our feelings reach out beyond us ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1207:An honest man is not accountable for the vice and folly of his trade, and therefore ought not to refuse the exercise of it. It is the custom of his country, and there is profit in it. We must live by the world, and such as we find it, so make use of it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1208:Sócrates no encaminó sus miras hacia las fantasías vanas; su fin fue proveernos de preceptos y máximas, que real y conjuntamente sirviesen para el gobierno de nuestra vida;   Observar una regla de conducta, perseverar hacia un fin, seguir la naturaleza. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1209:We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1210:Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1211:It is far more probable that our senses should deceive us, than that an old woman should be carried up a chimney on a broom stick; and that it is far less astonishing that witnesses should lie, than that witches should perform the acts that were alleged. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1212:Who does not see that I have taken a road along which I shall go, without stopping and without effort, as long as there is ink and paper in the world? I cannot keep a record of my life by my actions; fortune places them too low. I keep it by my thoughts. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1213:It is not certain where Death awaits us, so let us await it everywhere. To think of death beforehand is to think of our liberty. Whoever learns how to die has learned how not to be a slave. Knowing how to die frees us from all subjection and constraint.xi ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1214:Old age is a lease nature only signs as a particular favor, and it may be, to one, only in the space of two or three ages; and then with a pass to boot, to carry him through, all the traverses and difficulties she has strewed in the way of his long career. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1215:Those who make a practice of comparing human actions are never so perplexed as when they try to see them as a whole and in the same light; for they commonly contradict each other so strangely that it seems impossible that they have come from the same shop. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1216:Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1217:The good, supreme, divine poetry is above the rules and reason. Whoever discerns its beauty with a firm, sedate gaze does not see it, any more than he sees the splendor of a lightning flash. It does not persuade our judgement, it ravishes and overwhelms it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1218:Toen Socrates verteld werd dat iemand niet beter van een reis was teruggekeerd, zei hij: 'Natuurlijk niet, want die man had zichzelf meegenomen.' Waartoe gaan wij naar landen, verwarmd door een vreemde zon? Kan iemand mét zijn land ook zichzelf ontvluchten? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1219:After mature deliberation of counsel, the good Queen to establish a rule and immutable example unto all posterity, for the moderation and required modesty in a lawful marriage, ordained the number of six times a day as a lawful, necessary and competent limit. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1220:Behold the hands, how they promise, conjure, appeal, menace, pray, supplicate, refuse, beckon, interrogate, admire, confess, cringe, instruct, command, mock and what not besides, with a variation and multiplication of variation which makes the tongue envious. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1221:Ce serait peut-être de l’impiété chez Saint Augustin (par exemple), si d’un côté on lui proposait d’enterrer ses écrits, dont notre religion reçoit un si grand fruit, ou d’enterrer ses enfants au cas où il en eut, s’il n’aimait pas mieux enterrer ses enfants. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1222:The common notions that we find in credit around us and infused into our souls by our fathers' seed, these seem to be the universal and natural ones. Whence it comes to pass that what is off the hinges of custom, people believe to be off the hinges of reason. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1223:Any time and any place can be used to study: his room, a garden, is table, his bed; when alone or in company; morning and evening. His chief study will be Philosophy, that Former of good judgement and character who is privileged to be concerned with everything. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1224:Whatever I may be, I want to be elsewhere than on paper. My art and my industry have been employed in making myself good for something; my studies, in teaching me to do, not to write. I have put all my efforts into forming my life. That is my trade and my work. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1225:Ne garip ... insanı öldürmek için gün ışığında geniş meydanlar ararız ama onu yaratmak için karanlık köşelere gizleniriz. Şu insan ne korkunç bir hayvan ki kendi zevklerini başının belası sayıyor. Bizi yaratan işi hayvanlık saymaktan daha büyük hayvanlık mı olur? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1226:The most calamitous and fragile of all creatures is man, and yet the most arrogant....Is it possible to imagine anything so ridiculous as that this pitiful, miserable creature, who is not even master of himself, should call itself master and lord of the universe? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1227:Our skin is provided as adequately as theirs with endurance against the assaults of the weather: witness so many nations who have not yet tried the use of any clothes. Our ancient Gauls wore hardly any clothes; nor do the Irish, our neighbors, under so cold a sky. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1228:Da más quehacer interpretar las interpretaciones que dilucidar las cosas; y más libros se compusieron sobre los libros que sobre ningún otro asunto: no hacemos más que entreglosarnos unos a otros. El mundo hormiguea en comentadores; de autores hay gran carestía. El ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1229:My trifles escape me with as little gravity as they deserve. Good luck to them for that. I would part with them at once, however low their price. I do not buy and sell them for more than they weigh. I speak to my writing-paper exactly as I do to the first man I meet. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1230:More than 400 years ago, Michel de Montaigne, in his essay “On Experience,” wrote, “In my opinion, the most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles . . . and the most marvelous examples. ~ Austin Kleon,

1231:People try to get out of themselves and to escape from the man. This is folly; instead of transforming themselves into angels, they turn into beast; instead of lifting, they degrade themselves. These transcendental humors frighten me, like lofty and inaccessible heights. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1232:In true friendship, in which I am expert, I give myself to my friend more than I draw him to me. I not only like doing him good better than having him do me good, but also would rather have him do good to himself than to me; he does me most good when he does himself good. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1233:Meditar previamente sobre a morte é meditar previamente sobre a liberdade.Quem aprendeu a morrer desaprendeu a se subjugar. Não há nenhum mal na vida para aquele que bem compreendeu que a privação da vida não é um mal. Saber morrer liberta-nos de toda sujeição e imposição. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1234:So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination... And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1235:The ancient Florentines were so far from seeking to obtain any advantage over their enemies by surprise, that they always gave them a month’s warning before they drew their army into the field, by the continual tolling of a bell they called Martinella.—[After St. Martin.] For ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1236:I have not seen anywhere in the world a more obvious malformed person and miracle than myself. Through use and time we become conditioned to anything strange; but the more I become familiar with and know myself, the more my deformity amazes me and the less I understand myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1237:To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness; let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death.’ Michel de Montaigne, Essais (1580) ~ Val McDermid,

1238:When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep; yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts drift to far-off matters for some part of the time for some other part I lead them back again to the walk, the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, to myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1239:Whatever these futilities of mine may be, I have no intention of hiding them any more than I would a bald and grizzled portrait of myself. These are my humours, my opinions, things which I believe, not to be believed. My aim is reveal myself which may well be different tomorrow. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1240:How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among the friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1241:I never rebel so much against France as not to regard Paris with a friendly eye; she has had my heart since my childhood... I love her tenderly, even to her warts and her spots. I am French only by this great city: the glory of France, and one of the noblest ornaments of the world. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1242:With very little ado I stop the first sally of my emotions, and leave the subject that begins to be troublesome before it transports me. He who stops not the start will never be able to stop the course; he who cannot keep them out will never, get them out when they are once got in; ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1243:I never rebel so much against France as not to regard Paris with a friendly eye; she has had my heart since my childhood.... I love her tenderly, even to her warts and her spots. I am French only by this great city: the glory of France, and one of the noblest ornaments of the world. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1244:El mundo vive engañado: con facilidad mayor se camina por los bordes, donde la extremidad sirve de límite, parada y guía, que por la senda de en medio, amplia y abierta; es más cómodo proceder conforme al arte que según la naturaleza, pero también es menos noble y menos recomendable. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1245:My trade and my art is living. He who forbids me to speak about it according to my sense, experience, and practice, let him orderthe architect to speak of buildings not according to himself but according to his neighbor; according to another man's knowledge, not according to his own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1246:If the original essence of the thing which we fear could confidently lodge itself within us by its own authority it would be the same in all men. For all men are of the same species and, in varying degrees, are all furnished with the same conceptual tools and instruments of judgement. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1247:Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favorably and well in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life to alleviate the sense of them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1248:If any one should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I feel it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer, ‘Because it was he; because it was I.’ There is, beyond what I am able to say, I know not what inexplicable and inevitable power that brought on this union. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1249:Hadde jeg vært lege, ville jeg til en mann av min stand og stopning like gjerne ordinert dette som enhver annen medisin for å vekke og holde ham i ånde til hoyt oppe i årene og skåne ham for alderdommens angrep enda en stund. Så lenge vi bare er i utkanten av den og pulsen stadig slår - ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1250:In my country, and in my time, learning improves fortunes enough, but not minds; if it meet with those that are dull and heavy, it overcharges and suffocates them, leaving them a crude and undigested mass; if airy and fine, it purifies, clarifies, and subtilizes them, even to exinanition. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1251:[O Ruler of Olympus, why did it please thee to add more care to worried mortals by letting them learn of future slaughters by means of cruel omens! Whatever thou hast in store, do it unexpectedly; let the minds of men be blind to their future fate: let him who fears, still cling to hope!] ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1252:Je ne dis les autres, sinon pour d'autant plus me dire. ~ I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better. ~ Michel de Montaigne, "Of the Education of Children" (1575) ~ Variant: Je ne cite les autres que pour mieux exprimer ma pensée. ~   I quote others only the better to express myself.,

1253:We cannot be held to what is beyond our strength and means; for at times the accomplishment and execution may not be in our power, and indeed there is nothing really in our own power except the will: on this are necessarily based and founded all the principles that regulate the duty of man. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1254:Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy; research, the progress; ignorance, the end. There is, by heavens, a strong and generous kind of ignorance that yields nothing, for honour and courage, to knowledge: an ignorance to conceive which needs no less knowledge than to conceive knowledge. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1255:As by some might be saide of me: that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange floures, and have put nothing of mine unto it, but the thred to binde them. Certes, I have given unto publike opinion, that these borrowed ornaments accompany me; but I meane not they should cover or hide me. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1256:If I converse with a strong mind and a rough disputant, he presses upon my flanks, and pricks me right and left; his imaginations stir up mine, jealousy, glory, and contention, stimulate and raise me up to something above myself; and acquiescence is a quality altogether tedious in discourse. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1257:Il n'est si homme de bien, qu'il mette à l'examen des loix toutes ses actions et pensées, qui ne soit pendable dix fois en sa vie. (There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.) ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1258:Now, since everything else is furnished with the exact amount of needle and thread required to maintain its being, it is in truth incredible that we alone should be brought into the world in a defective and indigent state, in a state such that we cannot maintain ourselves without external aid. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1259:To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1260:The height and value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise; so far from difficulty, that boys, as well as men, and the innocent as well as the subtle, may make it their own; and it is by order and good conduct, and not by force, that it is to be acquired. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1261:Sou sociável ao excesso. Por isso me parece razoável subtrair da vista das pessoas a minha importunidade para incubá-la sozinho, e encolher-me e recolher-me em minha carapaça, como as tartarugas. Aprendo a ver os homens sem a eles me agarrar: isso seria um ultraje quando o passo é tão cambaleante. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1262:The worthiest man to be known, and for a pattern to be presented to the world, he is the man of whom we have most certain knowledge. He hath been declared and enlightened by the most clear-seeing men that ever were; the testimonies we have of him are in faithfulness and sufficiency most admirable. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1263:[A] man of honour is not accountable for the crimes and stupidities of his profession, nor should they make him refuse to practice it; such is the custom of his country, and he gets something from it. We must make our living from the world and use it as it is. -"On restraining your will. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1264:Tabiatta şöyle bir karışma da görülür: Ressamlardan öğreniyoruz ki ağlarken ve gülerken yüzümüzde beliren çizgiler ve hareketler aynıymış. Gerçekten, resim henüz bitmeden bakacak olursanız çehre ağlayacak mı, gülecek mi bilemezsiniz. Daha garibi var: Gülme son haddine varınca gözyaşlarıyla karışır. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1265:The majority of our polities, as Aristotle says, are like the Cyclops, abandoning the guidance of the women and children to each individual man according to his mad and injudicious ideas: hardly any, except the polities of Sparta and of Crete, have entrusted the education of children to their laws. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1266:Can anything be imagined so ridiculous that this miserable and wretched creature, who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1267:De gangene jeg har merket at en kvinne har vært misfornoyd med meg, har jeg ikke straks gitt hennes lettsinn skylden, men har spurt meg selv om jeg ikke heller burde skylde på naturen. Sannelig har den gitt meg en behandling i strid med både strafferett og sivilrett - og krenket meg på det groveste. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1268:The human face is a weak guarantee; yet it deserves some consideration. And if I had to whip the wicked, I would do so more severely to those who belied and betrayed the promises that nature had implanted on their brows; I would punish malice more harshly when it was hidden under a kindly appearance. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1269:In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life; and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1270:One man may have some special knowledge at first-hand about the character of a river or a spring, who otherwise knows only what everyone else knows. Yet to give currency to this shred of information, he will undertake to write on the whole science of physics. From this fault many great troubles spring. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1271:It takes strong ears indeed to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship. For it is a healthy love that will risk wounding or offending in order to profer a benefit. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1272:Vale infinitamente más el hombre dejándose guiar por el orden natural del mundo, sin meterse a inquirir causas y efectos; un alma limpia de prejuicios dispone naturalmente de ventajas grandes para gozar la tranquilidad; las gentes que inquieren y rectifican sus juicios, son incapaces de sumisión completa. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1273:But as Nature is the best guide, teaching must be the development of natural inclinations, for which purpose the teacher must watch his pupil and listen to him, not continually bawl words into his ears as if pouring water into a funnel. Good teaching will come from a mind well made rather than well filled. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1274:Can anything be imagined so ridiculous, that this miserable and wretched creature [man], who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1275:My library is my kingdom, and here I try to make my rule absolute-shutting off this single nook from wife, daughter and society. Elsewhere I have only a verbal authority, and vague. Unhappy is the man, in my opinion, who has no spot at home where he can be at home to himself-to court himself and hide away. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1276:Our thoughts are always elsewhere; we are stayed and supported by the hope for a better life, or by the hope that our children will turn out well, or that our name will be famous in the future, or that we shall escape the evils of this life, or that vengeance threatens those who are the cause of our death. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1277:>Any instruction which convince people that religious belief alone, without morality, suffices to satisfy God’s justice is destructive of all government and is far more harmful than is ingenious and subtle. Men’s practices reveal an extraordinary distinction between devotion and sense of right and wrong. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1278:I have a mind that belongs wholly to itself, and is accustomed to go its own way. Having never until this hour had a master or governor imposed on me, I have advanced as far as I pleased, and at my own pace. This has made me slack and unfit for the service of others; it has made me useless to any but myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1279:I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent. Such as are between both (which is the most common fashion), it is they that spoil all; they will needs chew our meat for us and take upon them a law to judge, and by consequence to square and incline the story according to their fantasy. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1280:Learning is a good medicine: but no medicine is powerful enough to preserve itself from taint and corruption independently of defects in the jar that it is kept in. One man sees clearly but does not see straight: consequently he sees what is good but fails to follow it; he sees knowledge and does not use it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1281:We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1282:they judge my affection by my memory and turn a natural defect into a deliberate one. ‘We begged him to do this,’ they say, ‘and he has forgotten.’ ‘He has forgotten his promise.’ ‘He has forgotten his friends.’ ‘He never remembered – even for my sake – to say this, to do that or not to mention something else. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1283:It is only reasonable to allow the administration of affairs to mothers before their children reach the age prescribed by law at which they themselves can be responsible. But that father would have reared them ill who could not hope that in their maturity they would have more wisdom and competence than his wife. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1284:To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, it is but to run to my books; they presently fix me to them, and drive the other out of my thoughts, and do not mutiny to see that I have only recourse to them for want of other more, real, natural, and lively conveniences; they always receive me with the same kindness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1285:In truth, knowledge is a great and very useful quality; those who despise it give evidence enough of their stupidity. Yet I do not set its value at that extreme measure that some attribute to it, such as the philosopher Herillus, who find in it the sovereign good and think it has the power to make us wise and happy. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1286:Profiting little by good examples, I make use of those that are ill, which are everywhere to be found: I endeavor to render myself as agreeable as I see others offensive; as constant as I see others fickle; as affable as I see others rough; as good as I see others evil: but I propose to myself impracticable measures. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1287:The concern that some women show at the absence of their husbands, does not arise from their not seeing them and being with them, but from their apprehension that their husbands are enjoying pleasures in which they do not participate, and which, from their being at a distance, they have not the power of interrupting. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1288:Våre forfedre oppdro sine dotre til å oppfore seg bluferdig og fryktsomt (folelsene og driftene var de samme), vi oppdrar dem til selvsikkerhet - vi forstår oss ikke på det i det hele tatt. Det passer for de sarmatiske kvinnene som ikke har lov til å ligge med en mann for de egenhendig har drept en annen mann i krig. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1289:In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1290:One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us and whereto our passions transport us. But those which by long habit are rooted in a strong and anchored in a powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies, which diverts us here and there. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1291:If these Essays were worthy of being judged, it might fall out, in my opinion, that they would not find much favour, either with common and vulgar minds, or with uncommon and eminent ones: the former would not find enough in them, the latter would find too much; they might manage to live somewhere in the middle region. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1292:Ambition is, of all other, the most contrary humor to solitude; and glory and repose are so inconsistent that they cannot possibly inhabit one and the same place; and for so much as I understand, those have only their arms and legs disengaged from the crowd, their mind and intention remain engaged behind more than ever. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1293:Meus próprios costumes, que não chegam a distar uma polegada dos costumes correntes, mesmo assim me tornam de certo modo intratável e insociável para o meu século. Não sei se me desgosto sem razão com o mundo em que vivo, mas sei bem que não teria razão se me queixasse de ele se desgostar comigo tanto quanto eu com ele. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1294:The shortest way to arrive at glory should be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. And the virtue of Alexander appears to me with much less vigor in his theater than that of Socrates in his mean and obscure. I can easily conceive Socrates in the place of Alexander, but Alexander in that of Socrates I cannot. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1295:And as hearbes and trees are bettered and fortified by being transplanted, so formes of speach are embellished and graced by variation.... As in our ordinary language, we shall sometimes meete with excellent phrases, and quaint metaphors, whose blithnesse fadeth through age, and colour is tarnish by to common using them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1296:Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to have a sufficient length of life. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1297:Is it that we pretend to a reformation? Truly, no: but it may be we are more addicted to Venus than our fathers were. They are two exercises that thwart and hinder one another in their vigor. Lechery weakens our stomach on the one side; and on the other sobriety renders us more spruce and amorous for the exercise of love. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1298:Teach him a certain refinement in sorting out and selecting his arguments, with an affection for relevance and so for brevity. Above all let him be taught to throw down his arms and surrender to truth as soon as he perceives it, whether the truth is born at his rival's doing or within himself from some change in his ideas. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1299:The laws keep up their credit, not by being just, but because they are laws; 'tis the mystic foundation of their authority; they have no other, and it well answers their purpose. They are often made by fools; still oftener by men who, out of hatred to equality, fail in equity; but always by men, vain and irresolute authors. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1300:Toda la gloria que yo pretendo alcanzar de mi existencia consiste en haberla vivido tranquila; tranquila, no según Metrodoro, Arcesilao o Aristipo, sino según yo mismo. Puesto que la filosofía no supo encontrar ningún camino que condujera a la calma de la vida, y que fuera aplicable a todos, que cada cual lo busque de por sí. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1301:Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me--a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life; not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1302:There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience…These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant; and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us; it is the only payment that can never fail. “On Repentance ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1303:Courtesy, like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and inclination to love one another at the first sight, and in the very beginning of our acquaintance and familiarity; and, consequently, that which first opens the door for us to better ourselves by the example of others, if there be anything in the society worth notice ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1304:Laws gain their authority from actual possession and custom: it is perilous to go back to their origins; laws, like our rivers, get greater and nobler as they roll along: follow them back upstream to their sources and all you find is a tiny spring, hardly recognizable; as time goes by it swells with pride and grows in strength. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1305:If atoms do, by chance, happen to combine themselves into so many shapes, why have they never combined together to form a house or a slipper? By the same token, why do we not believe that if innumerable letters of the Greek alphabet were poured all over the market-place they would eventually happen to form the text of the Iliad? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1306:We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1307:We take other men's knowledge and opinions upon trust; which is an idle and superficial learning. We must make it our own. We are in this way much like him, who having need of fire, goes to a neighbour's house to fetch it, and finding a very good one there, sits down to warm without remembering to carry any with him home. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1308:We are never ‘at home’: we are always outside ourselves. Fear, desire, hope, impel us towards the future; they rob us of feelings and concern for what now is, in order to spend time over what will be – even when we ourselves shall be no more. [C] ‘Calamitosus est animus futuri anxius’ [Wretched is a mind anxious about the future]. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1309:Ama nasıl şükrediyorum Tanrı'ya, varımı yoğumu bana aracısız vermiş, beni yalnız kendisine borçlu kılmış olduğu için! Nasıl yalvarıyorum ona gece gündüz beni hiçbir zaman, kimseye karşı ağır bir minnet altına sokmasın diye! Ne mutlu bir özgürlükle bunca zaman yaşadım: Onunla bitsin ömrüm! Bütün çabam kimseye muhtaç olmadan yaşamak. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1310:Pues la costumbre, verdaderamente es una violenta y traidora institutriz. Poco a poco y con disimulo, establece en nosotros el pie de su autoridad; pero tras este suave y humilde comienzo, una vez asentado y plantado con ayuda del tiempo, pronto nos revela un talante furioso y tiránico contra el que no podemos ya ni alzar la mirada. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1311:Had I been placed among those nations which are said to live still in the sweet freedom of nature's first laws, I assure you I should very gladly have portrayed myself here entire and wholly naked. Thus, reader, I am myself the matter of my book; you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and vain a subject. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1312:Pues la costumbre, verdaderamente es una violenta y traidora institutriz. Poco a poco y con disimulo, establece en nosotros el pie de su autoridad; pero tras este suave y humilde comienzo, una vez asentado y plantado con ayuda del tiempo, pronto nos revela un talante furioso y tiránico contra el que no podemos ya ni alzar la mirada. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1313:I once took pleasure some place in seeing men, through piety, take a vow of ignorance, as of chastity, poverty, penitence. It is also castrating our disorderly appetites, to blunt that cupidity that pricks us on to the study of books, and to deprive the soul of that voluptuous complacency which tickles us with the notion of being learned. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1314:We hold death, poverty, and grief for our principal enemies; but this death, which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful things, who does not know that others call it the only secure harbor from the storm and tempests of life, the sovereign good of nature, the sole support of liberty, and the common and sudden remedy of all evils? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1315:Il est incertain où la mort nous attende, attendons-la partout. La préméditation de la mort est préméditation de la liberté. Qui a appris à mourir, il a désappris à servir. Le savoir mourir nous affranchit de toute sujétion et contrainte. Il n'y a rien de mal en la vie pour celui qui a bien compris que la privation de la vie n'est pas mal. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1316:The world always looks straights ahead; as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself; I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others...they always go forward; as for me, I roll about in myself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1317:Cada uno de nosotros es más rico de lo que piensa, pero se nos habitúa al préstamo y a la mendicidad; se nos acostumbra a servirnos de lo ajeno más que de lo nuestro. En nada acierta el hombre detenerse en el preciso punto de su necesidad: en goces, riqueza y poderío abraza más de lo que puede estrechar; su avidez es incapaz de moderación. Yo ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1318:…what privilege this filthy excrement had, that we must carry about us a fine handkerchief to receive it, and, which was more, afterward to lap it carefully up and carry it all day about in our pockets, which, he said, could not but be much more nauseous and offensive, than to see it thrown away, as we did all other evacuations” – A gentleman ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1319:Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1320:Taşkın ve azgın bir tutku giriştiğimiz işe yarardan çok zarar getirir,olayların ters gitmesi, gecikmesi karşısında sabırsızlığa sürükler bizi, işlerine baktığımız insanlardan soğutur, kuşkulandırır. Bizi avucuna alan ve sürükleyen bir işi kendimiz iyi yönetemeyiz hiçbir zaman. Oysa işe yalnız kafasını ve ustalığını koyan daha rahat yürütür işi. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1321:I was not long since in a company where I was not who of my fraternity brought news of a kind of pills, by true account, composed of a hundred and odd several ingredients; whereat we laughed very heartily, and made ourselves good sport; for what rock so hard were able to resist the shock or withstand the force of so thick and numerous a battery? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1322:There is a certain consideration, and a general duty of humanity, that binds us not only to the animals, which have life and feeling, but even to the trees and plants. We owe justice to people, and kindness and benevolence to all other creatures who may be susceptible of it. There is some intercourse between them and us, and some mutual obligation. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1323:The whole idea we have for their chastity is ridiculous. They would have to become numb and invisible to please us. I don't know whether the exploits of Alexander and Caesar really surpass the resolution of a beautiful young woman, bred up in the light and commerce of our society, who still keeps herself whole. There is no doing so hard as not doing. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1324:It was truly very good reason that we should be beholden to God only, and to the favour of his grace, for the truth of so noble a belief, since from his sole bounty we receive the fruit of immortality, which consists in the enjoyment of eternal beatitude.... The more we give and confess to owe and render to God, we do it with the greater Christianity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1325:Most of Aesop’s fables have many different levels and meanings. There are those who make myths of them by choosing some feature that fits in well with the fable. But for most of the fables this is only the first and most superficial aspect. There are others that are more vital, more essential and profound, that they have not been able to reach. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1326:Of all human and ancient opinions concerning religion, that seems to me the most likely and most excusable, that acknowledged God as an incomprehensible power, the original and preserver of all things, all goodness, all perfection, receiving and taking in good part the honour and reverence that man paid him, under what method, name, or ceremonies soever. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1327:...were these Essays of mine considerable enough to deserve a critical judgment, it might then, I think, fall out that they would not much take with common and vulgar capacities, nor be very acceptable to the singular and excellent sort of men; the first would not understand them enough, and the last too much; and so they may hover in the middle region. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1328:Marriage has, for its share, usefulness, justice, honour, and constancy; a stale but more durable pleasure. Love is grounded on pleasure alone, and it is indeed more gratifying to the senses, keener and more acute; a pleasure stirred and kept alive by difficulties. There must be a sting and a smart in it. It ceases to be love if it has no shafts and no fire. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1329:Dit hier zijn mijn gedachten, en daarmee probeer ik geen kennis over de dingen maar over mijzelf te verschaffen. Misschien zal ik nog eens kennis over de dingen krijgen, of heb ik die vroeger gehad, toen ik bij toeval op passages stuitte waar ze werden opgehelderd. Maar dat herinner ik mij niet meer. Want ook al lees ik nogal wat, er zit geen bodem in dit vat. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1330:For in truth habit is a violent and treacherous schoolmistress. She establishes in us, little by little, stealthily, the foothold of her authority; but having by this mild and humble beginning settled and planted it with the help of time, she soon uncovers to us a furious and tyrannical face against which we no longer have the liberty of even raising our eyes. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1331:I enter into discussion and argument with great freedom and ease, inasmuch as opinion finds me in a bad soil to penetrate and take deep root in. No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, whatever contrast it offers to my own. There is no fancy so frivolous and so extravagant that it does not seem to me quite suitable to the production of the human mind. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1332:Para empezar a privar a la muerte de su mayor ventaja sobre nosotros, adoptemos una actitud del todo opuesta a la común; privemos a la muerte de su extrañeza, frecuentémosla, acostumbrémonos a ella; no tengamos nada más presente que la muerte. No sabemos dónde nos espera la muerte: así pues esperémosla en todas partes. Practicar la muerte es practicar la libertad. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1333:We must untie these bonds that are so powerful, and henceforth love this and that, but be wedded on to ourselves. That is to say, let the other things be ours, but not joined and glued to us so strongly that they cannot be detached without tearing off our skin and some part of our flesh as well. The greatest thing in this world is to know how to belong to oneself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1334:I have seen books made of things neither studied nor ever understood ... the author contenting himself for his own part, to have cast the plot and projected the design of it, and by his industry to have bound up the fagot of unknown provisions; at least the ink and paper his own. This may be said to be a buying or borrowing, and not a making or compiling of a book. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1335:The first law that ever God gave to man was a law of pure obedience; it was a commandment naked and simple, wherein man had nothing to inquire after, or to dispute, forasmuch as to obey is the proper office of a rational soul, acknowledging a heavenly superior and benefactor. From obedience and submission spring all other virtues, as all sin does from self-opinion. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1336:I have heard Silvius, an excellent physician of Paris, say that lest the digestive faculties of the stomach should grow idle, it were not amiss once a month to rouse them by this excess, and to spur them lest they should grow dull and rusty; and one author tells us that the Persians used to consult about their most important affairs after being well warmed with wine. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1337:let us learn to withstand it resolutely, and to fight it. And to start to rid it of its greatest advantage over us, let us take a completely different route from the usual one. Let us rid it of its strangeness, get to know it, become accustomed to it. Let us have nothing so often in our minds as death. Let us picture it in our imagination constantly, in all its aspects. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1338:But we must not (as we do every day) give the name of duty to an inward bitter harshness born of self-interested passion, nor that of courage to malicious and treacherous dealings. What they call zeal is their propensity to wickedness and violence: it is not the cause which sets them ablaze but self-interest: they stoke up war not because it is just but because it is war. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1339:Ik heb gemerkt dat wij in de leerschool van de menselijke samenleving vaak de volgende fout maken: wij zijn er meer op uit onze eigen persoon op de voorgrond te stellen dan om anderen te doorgronden, en wij getroosten ons meer moeite om onze koopwaar aan de man te brengen dan om nieuwe voorraad in te slaan. Je kunt wijs zijn zonder ophef te maken, zonder aanstoot te geven. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1340:He who remembers the evils he has undergone, and those that have threatened him, and the slight causes that have changed him from one state to another, prepares himself in that way for future changes and for recognizing his condition. The life of Caesar has no more to show us than our own; an emperor's or an ordinary man's, it is still a life subject to all human accidents. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1341:Whenever a new discovery is reported to the world, they say first, It is probably not true, Then after, when the truth of the new proposition has been demonstrated beyond question, they say, Yes, it may be true, but it is not important. Finally, when sufficient time has elapsed to fully evidence its importance, they say, Yes, surely it is important, but it is no longer new. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1342:Custom is a violent and treacherous school mistress. She, by little and lithe, slyly and unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority; but having by this gentle and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we have no more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1343:The soul in which philosophy dwells should by its health make even the body healthy. It should make its tranquillity and gladness shine out from within; should form in its own mold the outward demeanor, and consequently arm it with a graceful pride, an active and joyous bearing, and a contented and good-natured countenance. The surest sign of wisdom is constant cheerfulness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1344:...ved sin bydende autoritet slover og fordummer den all Platons samlede teologi og filosofi; likevel gir han ikke fra seg et kny. Overalt ellers kan man bevare en viss anstendighet; alle andre aktiviteter finner seg i sommelighetsregler, men kjærlighetsakten kan man bare forestille seg som lastefull eller komisk. Bare prov å finne en klok og behersket måte å bedrive den på. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1345:Whenever a new finding is reported to the world people say - It is probably not true. Later on, when the reliability of a new finding has been fully confirmed, people say - OK, it may be true but it has no real significance. At last, when even the significance of the finding is obvious to everybody, people say - Well, it might have some significance, but the idea is not new. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1346:It is a dangerous and fateful presumption, besides the absurd temerity that it implies, to disdain what we do not comprehend. For after you have established, according to your fine undertstanding, the limits of truth and falsehood, and it turns out that you must necessarily believe things even stranger than those you deny, you are obliged from then on to abandon these limits. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1347:Lying is a disgraceful vice, and one that Plutarch paints in most disgraceful colors, when he says that it is "affording testimony that one first despises God, and then fears men." It is not possible more happily to describe its horrible, disgusting, and abandoned nature; for can we imagine anything more vile than to be cowards with regard to men, and brave with regard to God. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1348:Our understanding is conducted solely by means of the word: anyone who falsifies it betrays public society. It is the only tool by which we communicate our wishes and our thoughts; it is our soul’s interpreter: if we lack that, we can no longer hold together; we can no longer know each other. When words deceive us, it breaks all intercourse and loosens the bonds of our polity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1349:Pythagoras used to say that life resembles the Olympic Games: a few people strain their muscles to carry off a prize; others bring trinkets to sell to the crowd for gain; and some there are, and not the worst, who seek no other profit than to look at the show and see how and why everything is done; spectators of the life of other people in order to judge and regulate their own. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1350:Why may not a goose say thus: "All the parts of the universe I have an interest in: the earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me; the stars have their influence upon me; I have such an advantage by the winds and such by the waters; there is nothing that yon heavenly roof looks upon so favourably as me. I am the darling of Nature! Is it not man that keeps and serves me? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1351:A falta de educação, a ignorância, a simplicidade de espírito, a franqueza aliam-se em geral à ingenuidade. A curiosidade, a sutileza, o saber acarretam a malícia. A humildade, o temor, a obediência, a bondade elevada até a fraqueza e que constitui o alicerce sobre o qual assenta a conservação da sociedade humana, são peculiares a uma alma vazia, dócil, e presumindo pouco de si. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1352:If you did not have death, you would curse me incessantly for depriving you of it. Realizing its advantages, I have deliberately mixed a little bitterness into it to prevent you from embracing it too greedily and imprudently. To place you in the state of moderation I ask of you, of neither running from life nor fleeing from death, I have modulated them both between sweet and bitter. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1353:when Dandamys the Wise heard accounts of the lives of Socrates, Pythagoras and Diogenes, he said that they were in every way great personalities, except for their being too subject to venerating the Law: for, to support Law with its authority, true virtue must doff much of its original vigour; and many vicious deeds are done not merely with the Law’s permission but at its instigation:13 ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1354:Learning is not to be tacked to the mind, but we must fuse and blend them together, not merely giving the mind a slight tincture, but a thorough and perfect dye. And if we perceive no evident change and improvement, it would be better to leave it alone; learning is a dangerous weapon, and apt to wound its master if it be wielded by a feeble hand, and by one not well acquainted with its use. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1355:We must learn to suffer whatever we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of dischords as well as different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only some of them, what could he sing? He has got to know how to use all of them and blend them together. So too must we with good and ill, which are of one substance with our life. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1356:[Wisely does God hide what is to come under the darkness of night, laughing if a mortal projects his anxiety further than is proper… That man will be happy and master of himself who every day declares, ‘I have lived. Tomorrow let Father Jove fill the heavens with dark clouds or with purest light’… Let your mind rejoice in the present: let it loathe to trouble about what lies in the future.] ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1357:Atheism being a proposition as unnatural as monstrous, difficult also and hard to establish in the human understanding, how arrogant soever, there are men enough seen, out of vanity and pride, to be the authors of extraordinary and reforming opinions, and outwardly to affect the profession of them; who, if they are such fools, have, nevertheless, not the power to plant them in their own conscience. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1358:Since philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in it? .. But in truth I know nothing about the philosophy of education except this: that the greatest and the most important difficulty known to human learning seems to lie in that area which treats how to bring up children and how to educate them. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1359:What enriches language is its being handled and exploited by beautiful minds-not so much by making innovations as by expanding it through more vigorous and varied applications, by extending it and deploying it. It is not words that they contribute: what they do is enrich their words, deepen their meanings and tie down their usage; they teach it unaccustomed rhythms, prudently though and with ingenuity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1360:Comme quelqu'un pourroit dire de moy, que j'ay seulement faict icy un amas de fleurs estrangieres, n'y ayant fourny du mien que le filet à les lier. ~ As one might say of me that I have only made here a collection of other people's flowers, having provided nothing of my own but the cord to bind them together. ~ Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book III, Chapter XII; in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 653-54.,

1361:We commend a horse for his strength, and sureness of foot, and not for his rich caparisons; a greyhound for his share of heels, not for his fine collar; a hawk for her wing, not for her jesses and bells. Why, in like manner, do we not value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year, and all these are about him, but not in him. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1362:To call out for the hand of the enemy is a rather extreme measure, yet a better one, I think, than to remain in continual fever over an accident that has no remedy. But since all the precautions that a man can take are full of uneasiness and uncertainty, it is better to prepare with fine assurance for the worst that can happen, and derive some consolation from the fact that we are not sure that it will happen. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1363:En cuanto al mandar, que parece tan fácil y hacedero, si se considera la debilidad del juicio humano y la dificultad de elección entre las cosas nuevas o dudosas, yo creo que es mucho más cómodo y más grato el obedecer que el conducir, y que constituye un reposo grande para el espíritu el no tener que seguir más que una ruta trazada de antemano, y el no tener tampoco que responder de nadie, más que de sí mismo: ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1364:Would I fortify myself against the fear of death, it must be at the expense of Seneca: would I extract consolation for myself or my friend, I must borrow it from Cicero.  I might have found it in myself, had I been trained to make use of my own reason.  I do not like this relative and mendicant understanding; for though we could become learned by other men's learning, a man can never be wise but by his own wisdom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1365:It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to enjoy our being rightfully. We seek other conditions because we do not understand the use of our own, and go outside of ourselves because we do not know what it is like inside. Yet there is no use our mounting on stilts, for on stilts we must still walk on our own legs. And on the loftiest throne in the world we are still sitting only on our own rump. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1366:Luca doesn’t care what I think about science or religion or vampires. He accepts me as I am. With you, I always felt like you wanted to change me. We spoke so long ago of Michel de Montaigne, of how marriage was like a gilded cage. But Montaigne was wrong. Marriage can set you free of the cage if you find the right person.” She looked pleadingly at Falco, praying he would understand. “Luca da Peraga is the right man for me. ~ Fiona Paul,

1367:The natural heat, say the good-fellows, first seats itself in the feet: that concerns infancy; thence it mounts into the middle region, where it makes a long abode and produces, in my opinion, the sole true pleasures of human life; all other pleasures in comparison sleep; towards the end, like a vapor that still mounts upward, it arrives at the throat, where it makes its final residence, and concludes the progress. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1368:Our main enemies are held to be death, poverty and pain. Yet everyone knows that death, called the dreadest of all dreadful things, is by others called the only haven from life’s torments, our natural sovereign good, the only guarantor of our freedom, the common and ready cure of all our ills;2 some await it trembling and afraid: others [C] bear it more easily than life.3 [B] One man complains that death is too available:4 ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1369:To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere." "To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1370:Memory is a wonderfully useful tool, and without it judgement does its work with difficulty; it is entirely lacking in me.... Now,the more I distrust my memory, the more confused it becomes. It serves me better by chance encounter; I have to solicit it nonchalantly. For if I press it, it is stunned; and once it has begun to totter, the more I probe it, the more it gets mixed up and embarrassed. It serves me at its own time, not at mine. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1371:To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere." "To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1372:Men jeg innser klart at dette gode er svært vanskelig å gjenvinne; svakhet og lang erfaring har gitt oss en mer kresen og noyeregnende smak. Vi forlanger mer samtidig som vi har mindre å tilby; vi vil ha flere valgmuligheter, når vi selv minst fortjener å bli valgt. Fordi vi vet at i er slik, blir vi mindre dristige og mer mistroiske, og i betraktning av vår egen og deres tilstand, er det ikke noe som kan forsikre oss om at vi er elsket. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1373:For all parts of the body that we see fit to expose to the wind and air are found fit to endure it: face, feet, hands, legs, shoulders, head, according as custom invites us. For if there is a part of us that is tender and that seems as though it should fear the cold, it should be the stomach, where digestion takes place; our fathers left it uncovered, and our ladies, soft and delicate as they are, sometimes go half bare down to the navel. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1374:Plato forbids children wine till eighteen years of age, and to get drunk till forty; but, after forty, gives them leave to please themselves, and to mix a little liberally in their feasts the influence of Dionysos, that good deity who restores to younger men their gaiety and to old men their youth...fit to inspire old men with mettle to divert themselves in dancing and music; things of great use, and that they dare not attempt when sober. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1375:I hail and caress truth in what quarter soever I find it, and cheerfully surrender myself, and open my conquered arms as far off as I can discover it; and, provided it be not too imperiously, take a pleasure in being reproved, and accommodate myself to my accusers, very often more by reason of civility than amendment, loving to gratify and nourish the liberty of admonition by my facility of submitting to it, and this even at my own expense. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1376:No profession or occupation is more pleasing than the military; a profession or exercise both noble in execution (for the strongest, most generous and proudest of all virtues is true valor) and noble in its cause. No utility either more just or universal than the protection of the repose or defense of the greatness of one's country. The company and daily conversation of so many noble, young and active men cannot but be well-pleasing to you. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1377:That philosopher who orders us to conceal ourselves and to care for no one but ourselves and who wishes us to remain unknown to others, wants us even less to be held in honour and glory by them. He also advised Idomeneus in no wise to govern his actions by reputation or by common opinion, except to avoid such incidental disadvantages as the contempt of men might bring him.10 Those words are infinitely true, in my opinion, and are reasonable. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1378:What we are told of the inhabitants of Brazil, that they never die but of old age, is attributed to the tranquility and serenity of their climate; I rather attribute it to the tranquility and serenity of their souls, which are free from all passion, thought, or any absorbing and unpleasant labors. Those people spend their lives in an admirable simplicity and ignorance, without letters, without law, without king, without any manner of religion. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1379:Antigonus, having taken one of his soldiers into a great degree of favor and esteem for his valor, gave his physicians strict charge to cure him of a long and inward disease under which he had a great while languished, and observing that, after his cure, he went much more coldly to work than before, he asked him what had so altered and cowed him: “Yourself, sir,” replied the other, “by having eased me of the pains that made me weary of my life. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1380:I feel grateful to the Milesian wench who, seeing the philosopher Thales continually spending his time in contemplation of the heavenly vault and always keeping his eyes raised upward, put something in his way to make him stumble, to warn him that it would be time to amuse his thoughts with things in the clouds when he had seen to those at his feet. Indeed she gave him or her good counsel, to look rather to himself than to the sky. —Michel de Montaigne ~ Benjamin Graham,

1381:Their pupils and their little charges are not nourished and fed by what they learn: the learning is passed from hand to hand with only one end in view: to show it off, to put into our accounts to entertain others with it, as though it were merely counters, useful for totting up and producing statements, but having no other use or currency. 'Apud alios loqui didicerunt, non ipsi secum' [They have learned how to talk with others, not with themselves] ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1382:The Emperor Conrad III had besieged Guelph, Duke of Bavaria; no matter how base and cowardly were the satisfactions offered him, the most generous condition he would vouchsafe was to allow the noblewomen who had been besieged with the Duke to come out honourably on foot, together with whatever they could carry on their persons. They, with greatness of heart, decided to carry out on their shoulders their husbands, their children and the Duke himself. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1383:We take other men’s knowledge and opinions upon trust; which is an idle and superficial learning. We must make them our own. We are just like a man who, needing fire, went to a neighbor’s house to fetch it, and finding a very good one there, sat down to warm himself without remembering to carry any back home. What good does it do us to have our belly full of meat if it is not digested, if it is not transformed into us, if it does not nourish and support us? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1384:To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again...books which I have read carefully a few years before. I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1385:[I]n my country, when they would say a man has no sense, they say, such an one has no memory; and when I complain of the defect of mine, they do not believe me, and reprove me, as though I accused myself for a fool: not discerning the difference betwixt memory and understanding, which is to make matters still worse for me. But they do me wrong; for experience, rather, daily shows us, on the contrary, that a strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1386:… I have seen books made of things neither studied nor ever understood … the author contenting himself for his own part, to have cast the plot and projected the design of it, and by his industry to have bound up the fagot of unknown provisions; at least the ink and paper his own. This may be said to be a buying or borrowing, and not a making or compiling of a book. ~ Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book III, Chapter XII; in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 653-54.,

1387:Tis my humor as much to regard the form as the substance, and the advocate as much as the cause, as Alcibiades ordered we should: and every day pass away my time in reading authors without any consideration of their learning; their manner is what I look after, not their subject. And just so do I hunt after the conversation of any eminent wit, not that he may teach me, but that I may know him, and that knowing him, if I think him worthy of imitation, I may imitate him. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1388:We have more poets than judges and interpreters of poetry. It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one. There is, indeed, a certain low and moderate sort of poetry, that a man may well enough judge by certain rules of art; but the true, supreme, and divine poesy is equally above all rules and reason. And whoever discerns the beauty of it with the most assured and most steady sight sees no more than the quick reflection of a flash of lightning. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1389:Now, since our condition accommodates things to itself, and transforms them according to itself, we no longer know things in their reality; for nothing comes to us that is not altered and falsified by our Senses. When the compass, the square, and the rule are untrue, all the calculations drawn from them, all the buildings erected by their measure, are of necessity also defective and out of plumb. The uncertainty of our senses renders uncertain everything that they produce. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1390:Our life, like the harmony of the world, is composed of contrast, also of varying tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked one sort only, what effect would he make? He must be able to employ them together and blend them. And we too must accept the good and bad that coexist in our life. Our existence is impossible without this mixture, and one side is no less necessary to us than the other. – Michel de Montaigne, sixteenth-century French writer ~ Philip G Zimbardo,

1391:I take so great a pleasure in being judged and known, that it is almost indifferent to me in which of the two forms I am so: my imagination so often contradicts and condemns itself, that ’tis all one to me if another do it, especially considering that I give his reprehension no greater authority than I choose; but I break with him, who carries himself so high, as I know of one who repents his advice, if not believed, and takes it for an affront if it be not immediately followed. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1392:There is no passion that so much transports men from their right judgments as anger. No one would demur upon punishing a judge with death who should condemn a criminal upon the account of his own choler; why then should fathers and pedants be any more allowed to whip and chastise children in their anger? It is then no longer correction bat revenge. Chastisement is instead of physic to children; and should we suffer a physician who should be animated against and enraged at his patient? ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1393:Business in a certain sort of men is a mark of understanding, and they are honored for it. Their souls seek repose in agitation, as children do by being rocked in a cradle. They may pronounce themselves as serviceable to their friends as troublesome to themselves. No one distributes his money to others, but every one therein distributes his time and his life. There is nothing of which we are so prodigal as of those two things, of which to be thrifty would be both commendable and useful. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1394:for this present child of my brain, what I give it I give unconditionally and irrevocably, just as one does to the children of one’s body; such little good as I have already done it is no longer mine to dispose of; it may know plenty of things which I know no longer, and remember things about me that I have forgotten; if the need arose to turn to it for help, it would be like borrowing from a stranger. It is richer than I am, yet I am wiser than it. Few devotees of poetry would not have ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1395:Did I know myself less, I might perhaps venture to handle something or other to the bottom, and to be deceived in my own inability; but sprinkling here one word and there another, patterns cut from several pieces and scattered without design and without engaging myself too far, I am not responsible for them, or obliged to keep close to my subject, without varying at my own liberty and pleasure, and giving up myself to doubt and uncertainty, and to my own governing method, ignorance. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1396:Traveling through the world produces a marvelous clarity in the judgment of men. We are all of us confined and enclosed within ourselves, and see no farther than the end of our nose. This great world is a mirror where we must see ourselves in order to know ourselves. There are so many different tempers, so many different points of view, judgments, opinions, laws and customs to teach us to judge wisely on our own, and to teach our judgment to recognize its imperfection and natural weakness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1397:Men do not know the natural infirmity of their mind: it does nothing but ferret and quest, and keeps incessantly whirling around, building up and becoming entangled in its own work, like silkworms, and is suffocated in it. A mouse in a pitch barrel...thinks it notices from a distance some sort of glimmer of imaginary light and truth; but while running toward it, it is crossed by so many difficulties and obstacles, and diverted by so many new quests, that it strays from the road, bewildered. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1398:We read and read and read, and we forget and forget and forget. So why do we bother? Michel de Montaigne expressed the dilemma of extensive reading in the sixteenth century: “I leaf through books, I do not study them,” he wrote. “What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else’s. It is only the material from which my judgment has profited, and the thoughts and ideas with which it has become imbued; the author, the place, the words, and other circumstances, I immediately forget. ~ Joshua Foer,

1399:Our disputes ought to be interdicted and punished as well as other verbal crimes: what vice do they not raise and heap up, being always governed and commanded by passion? We first quarrel with their reasons, and then with the men. We only learn to dispute that we may contradict; and so, every one contradicting and being contradicted, it falls out that the fruit of disputation is to lose and annihilate truth. Therefore it is that Plato in his Republic prohibits this exercise to fools and ill-bred people. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1400:God might grant us riches, honours, life, and even health, to our own hurt; for every thing that is pleasing to us is not always good for us. If he sends us death, or an increase of sickness, instead of a cure, Vvrga tua et baculus, tuus ipsa me consolata sunt. "Thy rod and thy staff have comforted me," he does it by the rule of his providence, which better and more certainly discerns what is proper for us than we can do; and we ought to take it in good part, as coming from a wise and most friendly hand. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1401:We thought we were tying our marriage-knots more tightly by removing all means of undoing them;22 but the tighter we pulled the knot of constraint the looser and slacker became the knot of our will and affection. In Rome, on the contrary, what made marriages honoured and secure for so long a period was freedom to break them at will. Men loved their wives more because they could lose them; and during a period when anyone was quite free to divorce, more than five hundred years went by before a single one did ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1402:.. since it was true that study, even when done properly, can only teach us what wisdom, right conduct and determination consist in, they wanted to put their children directly in touch with actual cases, teaching them not by hearsay but by actively assaying them, vigorously molding and forming them not merely by word and precept but chiefly by deeds and examples, so that wisdom should not be something which the soul knows but the soul's very essence and temperament, not something acquired but a natural property. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1403:I would like to suggest that our minds are swamped by too much study and by too much matter just as plants are swamped by too much water or lamps by too much oil; that our minds, held fast and encumbered by so many diverse preoccupations, may well lose the means of struggling free, remaining bowed and bent under the load; except that it is quite otherwise: the more our souls are filled, the more they expand; examples drawn from far-off times show, on the contrary, that great soldiers ad statesmen were also great scholars. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1404:The apprentice Christian may not rise so high but, once his heart is governed by Faith, it is reasonable for Faith to draw on his other capacities to support him. Sebond’s doctrine of illumination helps us to do so effectively and to draw religious strength from a knowledge of God’s creation: [God] has left within these lofty works the impress of his Godhead: only our weakness stops us from discovering it. He tells us himself that he makes manifest his unseen workings through those things which are seen. (‘Apology’, p. 498) ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1405:As for our pupils talk, let his virtue and his sense of right and wrong shine through it and have no guide but reason. Make him understand that confessing an error which he discovers in his own argument even when he alone has noticed it is an act of justice and integrity, which are the main qualities he pursues; stubbornness and rancour are vulgar qualities, visible in common souls whereas to think again, to change one's mind and to give up a bad case on the heat of the argument are rare qualities showing strength and wisdom. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1406:In the year of Christ 1571, at the age of thirty-eight, on the last day of February, anniversary of his birth, Michel de Montaigne, lon weary of the servitude of the court and of public employments, while still entire, retired to the bosom of the learned Virgins [Muses], where in calm and freedom from all cares he will spend what little remains of his life now more than half run out. If the fates permit, he will completethis abode, this sweet ancestral retreat; and he has consecrated it to his freedom, tranquility, and leisure. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1407:We are neither obstinately nor wilfully to oppose evils, nor truckle under them for want of courage, but that we are naturally to give way to them, according to their condition and our own, we ought to grant free passage to diseases; and I find they stay less with me who let them alone. And I have lost those which are reputed the most tenacious and obstinate of their own defervescence, without any help or art, and contrary to their rules. Let us a little permit nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1408:A tutor should not be continually thundering instruction into the ears of his pupil, as if he were pouring it through a funnel, but, after having put the lad, like a young horse, on a trot, before him, to observe his paces, and see what he is able to perform, should, according to the extent of his capacity, induce him to taste, to distinguish, and to find out things for himself; sometimes opening the way, at other times leaving it for him to open; and by abating or increasing his own pace, accommodate his precepts to the capacity of his pupil. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1409:I enter into conference, and dispute with great liberty and facility, forasmuch as opinion meets in me with a soil very unfit for penetration, and wherein to take any deep root; no propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, though never so contrary to my own; there is no so frivolous and extravagant fancy that does not seem to me suitable to the production of human wit. We, who deprive our judgment of the right of determining, look indifferently upon the diverse opinions, and if we incline not our judgment to them, yet we easily give them the hearing. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1410:Entre las leyes que atañen a los muertos, ésta que obliga a que se examinen los actos de los príncipes después de su muerte, paréceme de las más sólidas. Ellos son compañeros cuando no señores de las leyes; lo que la justicia no ha podido sobre sus cabezas, es razonable que lo pueda sobre su reputación y sobre los bienes de sus sucesores: cosas que a menudo preferimos a la vida. Es costumbre que beneficia sobremanera a las naciones que la observan y es deseable para todos los buenos príncipes que se quejan de que se honre la memoria de los malos como la suya. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1411:And in this we must for the most part entertain ourselves with ourselves, and so privately that no exotic knowledge or communication be admitted there; there to laugh and to talk, as if without wife, children, goods, train, or attendance, to the end that when it shall so fall out that we must lose any or all of these, it may be no new thing to be without them. We have a mind pliable in itself; that will be company; that has wherewithal to attack and to defend, to receive and to give: let us not then fear in this solitude to languish under an uncomfortable vacuity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1412:Overigens is wat wij gewoonlijk vrienden en vriendschappen noemen niet meer dan een door een of ander toeval of vordeel tot stand gekomen bekendheid of vertrouwdheid met iemand, waarin de geesten elkaar vinden. In de vriendschap waarvan ik spreek, vermengen en versmelten beide geesten zich tot een zo alles omvattend samengaan, dat ze de naad die hen verbindt foen verdwijnen en niet meer terugvinden. Als men bij mij zou aandringen te zeggen waarom ik van hem hield, voel ik dat dat alleen uitgedrukt kan worden door te antwoorden: 'Omdat hij het was; omdat ik het was'. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1413:If anyone gets intoxicated with his knowledge when he looks beneath him, let him turn his eyes upward toward past ages, and he will lower his horns, finding there so many thousands of minds that trample him underfoot. If he gets into some flattering presumption about his valor, let him remember the lives of the two Scipios, so many armies, so many nations, all of whom leave him so far behind them. No particular quality will make a man proud who balances it against the many weaknesses and imperfections that are also in him, and, in the end, against the nullity of man’s estate. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1414:You never speak about yourself without loss. Your self-condemnation is always accredited, your self-praise discredited. There may be some people of my temperament, I who learn better by contrast than by example, and by flight than by pursuit. This was the sort of teaching that Cato the Elder had in view when he said that the wise have more to learn from the fools than the fools from the wise; and also that ancient lyre player who, Pausanias tells us, was accustomed to force his pupils to go hear a bad musician who lived across the way, where they might learn to hate his discords and false measures. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1415:Puesto que Dios nos concede tiempo para disponer de nuestro desalojo, preparémonos, hagamos el equipaje, despidámonos a tiempo de la compañía, desembaracémonos de esas violentas ataduras que nos retienen en otro sitio y nos alejan de nosotros mismos. Hay que desatar esos lazos tan fuertes, y a partir de ahora amar esto y aquello, pero no casarse sino consigo mismo. Es decir: que el resto nos pertenezca, pero no unido y adherido de tal manera que no podamos desprendernos de ellos sin desollarnos y arrancarnos a la vez alguna parte nuestra. La cosa más importante del mundo es saber ser para uno mismo. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1416:ladies and gentlewomen only who were in the town with the duke might go out without violation of their honour, on foot, and with so much only as they could carry about them. Whereupon they, out of magnanimity of heart, presently contrived to carry out, upon their shoulders, their husbands and children, and the duke himself; a sight at which the emperor was so pleased, that, ravished with the generosity of the action, he wept for joy, and immediately extinguishing in his heart the mortal and capital hatred he had conceived against this duke, he from that time forward treated him and his with all humanity. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1417:No virtue assists itself with falsehood; truth is never matter of error. To speak more of one’s self than is really true is not always mere presumption; ‘tis, moreover, very often folly; to, be immeasurably pleased with what one is, and to fall into an indiscreet self-love, is in my opinion the substance of this vice. The most sovereign remedy to cure it, is to do quite contrary to what these people direct who, in forbidding men to speak of themselves, consequently, at the same time, interdict thinking of themselves too. Pride dwells in the thought; the tongue can have but a very little share in it. They ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1418:Compare with such a one the common rabble of mankind, stupid and mean-spirited, servile, instable, and continually floating with the tempest of various passions, that tosses and tumbles them to and fro, and all depending upon others, and you will find a greater distance than betwixt heaven and earth; and yet the blindness of common usage is such that we make little or no account of it; whereas if we consider a peasant and a king, a nobleman and a vassal, a magistrate and a private man, a rich man and a poor, there appears a vast disparity, though they differ no more, as a man may say, than in their breeches. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1419:Paolo is the learned one of us,” Falco explained. “His master is a scholar as well as a painter, so he is always getting his hands on literature from abroad.” He winked at Cass. “He is not nearly so dumb as his jokes--and his looks--would suggest.” “True,” Paolo said good-naturedly. “And I find I gravitate to the French.” He drained his mug and signaled the barkeep for a refill. “Last week I was reading an essay by Michel de Montaigne.” “Not more of this.” Nicolas, a stocky blond with the beginnings of a beard, rolled his eyes. “Why do you two always feel the need to impress the ladies with your knowledge of all things dull? ~ Fiona Paul,

1420:If the pupil proves to be of so perverse a disposition that he would rather listen to some idle tale than to the account of a glorious voyage or to a wise conversation, when he hears one; if he turns away from the drum-beat that awakens young ardour in his comrades, to listen to another tattoo that summons him to a display of juggling; if he does not fervently feel it to be pleasanter and sweeter to return from a wrestling-match, dusty but victorious, with the prize in his hand, than from a game of tennis or a ball, I can see no other remedy that for his tutor to strangle him before it is too late, if there are no witnesses. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1421:And this puts me in mind of that rich gentleman of Rome, who had been solicitous, with great expense, to procure men that were excellent in all sorts of science, whom he had always attending his person, to the end, that when amongst his friends any occasion fell out of speaking of any subject whatsoever, they might supply his place, and be ready to prompt him, one with a sentence of Seneca, another with a verse of Homer, and so forth, every one according to his talent; and he fancied this knowledge to be his own, because it was in the heads of those who lived upon his bounty; as they, also, do whose learning consists in having great libraries. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1422:Anyone who has not groomed his life in general towards some definite end cannot possibly arrange his individual actions properly. It is impossible to put the pieces together if you do not have in your head the idea of the whole. What is the use of providing yourself with paints if you do not know what to paint? No man sketches out a definite plan for his life; we only determine bits of it. The bowman must first know what he is aiming at: then he has to prepare hand, bow, bowstring, arrow and his drill to that end. Our projects go astray because they are not addressed to a target.16 No wind is right for a seaman who has no predetermined harbour. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1423:And a saint put it a saintly way: [The arranging of funerals, the choosing of tombs and the pomp of obsequies are consolations for the living rather than supports for the dead.] That is why Socrates (when Crito asked him in his final moments how he wanted to be buried) replied, ‘Just as you wish.’ If I had to trouble myself further, I would find it more worthy to imitate those who set about enjoying the disposition and honour of their tombs while they are still alive and breathing, and who take pleasure in seeing their dead faces carved in marble. Happy are they who can please and delight their senses with things insensate – and who can live off their death. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1424:When we spread our name by scattering it into many mouths we call that ‘increasing our renown’; we wish our name to be favourably received there and that it may gain from such an increase. That is what is most pardonable in such a design. But carried to excess this malady makes many seek to be on others’ lips, no matter how. Trogus Pompeius says of Herostratus, and Livy says of Manlius, that they were more desirous of a wide reputation than a good one.42 That is a common vice. We are more concerned that men should talk of us than of how they talk of us; and we are far more concerned that our name should run from mouth to mouth than under what circumstances it should do so. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1425:The originator of the literary form we call the essay, the sixteenth-century Frenchman Michel de Montaigne, was a social philosopher who viewed mankind through the scrutinizing lens of unadorned and unforgiving reality and heard its self-deceits with the ear of the skeptic. In his fifty-nine years, he gave much thought to death, and wrote of the necessity to accept each of its various forms as being equally natural: "Your death is a part of the order of the universe, 'tis a part of the life of the world...'tis the condition of your creation." And in the same essay, entitled "To Study Philosophy Is to Learn to Die," he wrote, "Give place to others, as others have given place to you. ~ Sherwin B Nuland,

1426:When the mind is satisfied, that is a sign of diminished faculties or weariness. No powerful mind stops within itself: it is always stretching out and exceeding its capacities. It makes sorties which go beyond what it can achieve: it is only half-alive if it is not advancing, pressing forward, getting driven into a corner and coming to blows; [B] its inquiries are shapeless and without limits; its nourishment consists in [C] amazement, the hunt and [B] uncertainty,20 as Apollo made clear enough to us by his speaking (as always) ambiguously, obscurely and obliquely, not glutting us but keeping us wondering and occupied.21 It is an irregular activity, never-ending and without pattern or target. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1427:Toen ik mij onlangs terugtrok op mijn landgoed,..., kwam het mij voor dat ik mijn geest geen grotere dienst kon bewijzen dan hem, in een volstrekt nietsdoen, met zichzelf bezig te laten zijn, om hem tot rust en tot zichzelf te laten komen... Maar ik merk nu, steevast maakt nietsdoen ons warrig van zinnen, dat hij juist, als een op hol geslagen paard, zichzelf honderd keer meer te doen geeft dan hij ooit voor een ander op zich nam; en hij baart mij zoveel spooksels en gedrochten - het een na het ander, zonder zin of samenhang, dat ik, om op mijn gemak zijn dwaasheden en eigenaardigheden te bestuderen, begonnen ben ze te boek te stellen, in de hoop dat hij zich zo nog eens voor zichzelf gaat schamen. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1428:A certain French nobleman always used to blow his nose with his fingers, something quite opposed to our customs. Defending his action (and he was famous for his repartee) he asked me why that filthy mucus should be so privileged that we should prepare fine linen to receive it and then, going even further, should wrap it up and carry it carefully about on our persons; that practice ought to excite more loathing and nausea than seeing him simply excrete it (wherever it might be) as we do all our other droppings. I considered that what he said was not totally unreasonable, but habit had prevented me from noticing just that strangeness which we find so hideous in similar customs in another country. Miraculous ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1429:Demetrius the grammarian finding in the temple of Delphos a knot of philosophers set chatting together, said to them, “Either I am much deceived, or by your cheerful and pleasant countenances, you are engaged in no very deep discourse.” To which one of them, Heracleon the Megarean, replied: “ ’Tis for such as are puzzled about inquiring whether the future tense of the verb Ballo be spelt with a double L, or that hunt after the derivation of the comparatives Cheirou and Beltiou, and the superlatives Cheiriotou and Beliotou, to knit their brows whilst discoursing of their science; but as to philosophical discourses, they always divert and cheer up those that entertain them, and never deject them or make them sad. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1430:Let the tutor not merely require a verbal account of what the boy has been taught but the meaning and the substance of it: let him judge how the child has profited from it not from the evidence of his memory but from that of his life. Let him take what the boy has just learned and make him show him dozens of different aspects of it and then apply it to just as many different subjects, in order to find out whether he has really grasped it and make it part of himself, judging the boy's progress by what Plato taught about education. Spewing up food exactly as you have swallowed it is evidence of a failure to digest and assimilate it; the stomach has not done its job if, during concoction, it fails to change the substance and the form of what it is given. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1431:Were our pupil's disposition so bizarre that he would rather hear a tall story than the account of a great voyage or a wise discussion; that at the sound of a drum calling the youthful ardour of his comrades to arms he would turn aside for the drum of a troop of jugglers; that he would actually find it no more delightful and pleasant to return victorious covered in the dust of battle than after winning a prize for tennis or dancing; then I know no remedy except that his tutor should quickly strangle him when nobody is looking or apprentice him to make fairy-cakes in some goodly town - even if he were the heir of a Duke - following Plato's precept that functions should be allocated not according to the endowments of men's fathers but the endowments of their souls. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1432:C'est étrange que les choses en soient venues à ce point à notre époque, et que la philosophie ne soit, même pour les gens intelligents, qu'un mot creux et chimérique, qui ne soit d'aucune utilité et n'ait aucune valeur, ni dans l'opinion générale, ni dansla réalité. Je crois que la cause en est que ses grandes avenues ont été occupées par des discussions oiseuses. On a grand tort de la décrire comme quelque chose d'inaccessible aux enfants, et de lui faire un visage renfrogné, sourcilleux et terrible : qui donc lui a mis ce masque d'un visage blême et hideux? Il n'est rien de plus gai, de plus allègre et de plus enjoué, et pour un peu, je dirais même : folâtre... Elle ne prêche que la fête et le bon temps. Une mine triste et abattue : voila qui montre bien que ce n'est pas laqu'elle habite. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1433:Democritus and Heraclitus were two philosophers, of whom the first, finding the condition of man vain and ridiculous, never went out in public but with a mocking and laughing face; whereas Heraclitus, having pity and compassion on this same condition of ours, wore a face perpetually sad, and eyes filled with tears. I prefer the first humor; not because it is pleasanter to laugh than to weep, but because it is more disdainful, and condemns us more than the other; and it seems to me that we can never be despised as much as we deserve. Pity and commiseration are mingled with some esteem for the thing we pity; the things we laugh at we consider worthless. I do not think there is as much unhappiness in us as vanity, nor as much malice as stupidity. We are not so full of evil as of inanity; we are not as wretched as we are worthless. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1434:Debemos reservarnos una trastienda del todo nuestra, del todo libre, donde fijar nuestra verdadera libertad y nuestro principal retiro y soledad. En ella debemos mantener nuestra habitual conversación con nosotros mismos, y tan privada que no tenga cabida ninguna relación o comunicación con cosa ajena; discurrir y reír como si no tuviésemos mujer, hijos ni bienes, ni séquito ni criados, para que, cuando llegue la hora de perderlos, no nos resulte nuevo arreglárnoslas sin ellos. Poseemos un alma que puede replegarse en sí misma; puede hacerse compañía, tiene con qué atacar y con qué defender, con qué recibir y con qué dar. No temamos, en esta soledad, pudrirnos en el tedio del ocio: In solis sis tibi turba locis. [En estas soledades, sé una multitud para ti mismo]. La virtud se contenta consigo misma: sin enseñanzas, sin palabras, sin obras. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1435:How did you know it was me?” she asked. “I didn’t. But I heard one of the other girls chatting about how the new courtesan had taught her to read Michel de Montaigne. I knew there was almost no chance, but I asked her to identify you. Even then, I had to get close before I realized it was truly my starling.” He stroked her wig and then his hand dropped to her waist. “You look like you haven’t eaten in days. You should come stay with me, let me take care of you. We could run away together.” Cass imagined it. Her and Falco, together, in some other country. Far away from the Order. She could take the crate of gold and jewels from Villa Querini. Falco could earn money as an artist. Her obligation to Luca was a moral one, not a legal one. It wasn’t an impossible dream anymore. She and Falco could be together if they truly desired. It would be…easy. ~ Fiona Paul,

1436:When I lately retired to my house I resolved, as far as I could, to meddle in nothing, but to pass in peace and privacy what little time I had to live. It seemed to me I could not better gratify my mind than by giving it full leisure to dwell in its own thoughts and divert itself with them. And I hoped that with the passage of time, it could do this with greater ease as it became more settled and ripe. But the contrary was the case. Like a horse broke loose, it gave itself a hundred times more rein. There rose in me a horde of chimerae and fantastic creatures, one upon the other, without order or relevance. To contemplate more coolly] their queerness and ineptitude I began to put them in writing - hoping in time to make my mind ashamed of itself. A ming which has no set goal loses itself. To be everywhere is to be nowhere. No wind serves the man bound for no port. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1437:I don’t think I’m an exceptionally bad reader. I suspect that many people, maybe even most, are like me. We read and read and read, and we forget and forget and forget. So why do we bother? Michel de Montaigne expressed the dilemma of extensive reading in the sixteenth century: “I leaf through books, I do not study them,” he wrote. “What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else’s. It is only the material from which my judgment has profited, and the thoughts and ideas with which it has become imbued; the author, the place, the words, and other circumstances, I immediately forget.” He goes on to explain how “to compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory,” he adopted the habit of writing in the back of every book a short critical judgment, so as to have at least some general idea of what the tome was about and what he thought of it.   ~ Joshua Foer,

1438:Seneca'nın bir mektubundan: "Deli kadın kör olduğunu anlamıyor ve benim evimin karanlık olduğunu ileri sürerek, kendisini başka yere götürmesini istiyor yöneticisinden ikide bir. Onun bu durumuna gülüyoruz; ama inan bana ki hepimizin düştüğü bir durumdur bu: Kimse cimri olduğunu, kıskanç olduğunu kabul etmez. Körler hiç olmazsa bir yol gösterici isterler; biz kendi kendimizi sokarız yanlış yollara. Benim yükseklerde gözüm yoktur, ama Roma'da başka türlü yaşanmaz, deriz; öfkeliysem, güvenli bir hayat kuramadıysam suç bende değil, gençlikte deriz. Dışımızda aramayalım kötülüğü, içimizdedir o; ciğerimize işlemiştir. Hasta olduğumuzu bilmemek de iyileşmemizi daha zorlaştırır. Kendimizi erkenden bilmeye başlamazsak, nasıl başederiz bunca dertlerle, bunca kötülüklerle? Oysa felsefe gibi çok tatlı bir ilacımız da var. Öteki ilaçları ancak bizi iyileştirirlerse hoş buluruz; felsefe ise hem hoşlandırır, hem iyileştirir bizi. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1439:I felt compassion for the poor people who were taken in by [supernatural] follies. And now I think that I was at least as much to be pitied myself. Not that experience has since shown me anything surpassing my first beliefs, and that through no fault of my curiosity; but reason has taught me to condemn a thing thus, dogmatically, as false and impossible, is to assume the distinction of knowing the bounds and limits of God's will and of the power of our mother Nature; and that there is no more notable folly in the world than to measure these things by our capacity and competence. If we call prodigies or miracles whatever our reason cannot reach, how many of these appear continually before our eyes! Let us consider through what clouds and how gropingly we are led to the knowledge of most of the things that are right in our hands; assuredly we shall find that it is rather familiarity than knowledge that takes away their strangeness. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1440:Things external to her may have their own weight and dimension: but within inside us she gives them such measures as she wills: death is terrifying to Cicero, desirable to Cato, indifferent to Socrates. Health, consciousness, authority, knowledge, beauty and their opposites doff their garments as they enter the soul and receive new vestments, coloured with qualities of her own choosing: brown or green; light or dark; bitter or sweet, deep or shallow, as it pleases each of the individual souls, who have not agreed together on the truth of their practices, rules or ideas. Each soul is Queen in her own state. So let us no longer seek excuses from the external qualities of anything, the responsibility lies within ourselves. Our good or our bad depends on us alone. So let us make our offertories and our vows to ourselves not to Fortune: she has no power over our behaviour, on the contrary our souls drag Fortune in their train and mould her to their own idea. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1441:I have no other passion to keep me in breath. What avarice, ambition, quarrels, law suits do for others who, like me, have no particular vocation, love would much more commodiously do; it would restore to me vigilance, sobriety, grace, and the care of my person; it would reassure my countenance, so that the grimaces of old age, those deformed and dismal looks, might not come to disgrace it; would again put me upon sound and wise studies, by which I might render myself more loved and esteemed, clearing my mind of the despair of itself and of its use, and redintegrating it to itself; would divert me from a thousand troublesome thoughts, a thousand melancholic humours that idleness and the ill posture of our health loads us withal at such an age; would warm again, in dreams at least, the blood that nature is abandoning; would hold up the chin, and a little stretch out the nerves, the vigour and gaiety of life of that poor man who is going full drive towards his ruin. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1442:It is the inattentive reader who loses my subject, not I. Some word about it will always be found off in a corner, which will not fail to be sufficient, though it takes little room. I seek out change indiscriminately and tumultuously. My style and my mine alike go roaming. A man must be a little mad if he does not want to be even more stupid, say the precepts of our masters, and even more so their examples. A thousand poets drag and languish prosaically; but the best ancient prose — and I scatter it here indiscriminately as verse — shines throughout with the vigor and boldness of poetry, and gives the effect of its frenzy. To poetry we must certainly concede mastery and preeminence in speech. The poet, says Plato, seated on the tripod of the Muses, pours out in a frenzy whatever comes into his mouth, like the spout of a fountain, without ruminating and weighing it; and from him escape things of different colors and contradictory substance in an intermittent flow. He himself is utterly poetic, and the old theology is poetry, the scholars say, and the first philosophy. It is the original language of the Gods. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1443:Let this variety of ideas be set before him; he will choose if he can; if not, he will remain in doubt. Only the fools are certain and assured. For if he embraces Xenophon's and Plato's opinions by his own reasoning, they will no longer be theirs, they will be his. He who follows another follows nothing. He finds nothing; indeed he seeks nothing. We are not under a king; let each one claim his own freedom [Seneca]. Let him know that he knows, at least. He must imbibe their ways of thinking, not learn their precepts. And let him boldly forget, if he wants, where he got them, but let him know how to make them his own. Truth and reason are common to everyone, and no more belong to the man who first spoke them than to the man who says them later. It is no more according to Plato than according to me, since he and I understand and see it the same way. The bees plunder the flowers here and there, but afterward they make of them honey, which is all theirs; it is no longer thyme or marjoram. Even so with the pieces borrowed from others; he will transform and blend them to make a work of his own, to wit, his judgment. His education, work, and study aim only at forming this. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1444:As concerning marriage, besides that it is a covenant, the entrance into which only is free, but the continuance in it forced and compulsory, having another dependence than that of our own free will, and a bargain commonly contracted to other ends, there almost always happens a thousand intricacies in it to unravel, enough to break the thread and to divert the current of a lively affection: whereas friendship has no manner of business or traffic with aught but itself. Moreover, to say truth, the ordinary talent of women is not such as is sufficient to maintain the conference and communication required to the support of this sacred tie; nor do they appear to be endued with constancy of mind, to sustain the pinch of so hard and durable a knot. And doubtless, if without this, there could be such a free and voluntary familiarity contracted, where not only the souls might have this entire fruition, but the bodies also might share in the alliance, and a man be engaged throughout, the friendship would certainly be more full and perfect; but it is without example that this sex has ever yet arrived at such perfection; and, by the common consent of the ancient schools, it is wholly rejected from it. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1445:There is an old Greek saying that men are tormented not by things themselves but by what they think about them. If that assertion could be proved to be always true everywhere it would be an important point gained of the comforting of our wretched human condition. For if ills can only enter us through our judgemente it would seem to be in our power either to despise them or to deflect them towards the good: if the things actually do trow themselves on our mercy why do we not act as their masters and accomodate them to our advantage? If what we call evil or torment are only evil or torment insofar as our mental apprehension endows them with those qualities when it lies within our power to change those qualities. And if we did have such a choice and were free from constraint we would be curiously mad to pull in the direction which hurst us most, endowing sickness, poverty or insolence with a bad and bitter taste when we could give them a pleasent one, Fortune simply furnishing us with the matter and leaving it to us to supply the form. Let us see whether a case can be made for what we call evil not being an evil in itself or (since it amounts to the same) whether at least it is up to us to endow it with a different savour and aspect. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1446:There is an old Greek saying that men are tormented not by things themselves but by what they think about them. If that assertion could be proved to be always true everywhere it would be an important point gained for the comforting of our wretched human condition. For if ills can only enter us through our judgement it would seem to be in our power either to despise them or to deflect them towards the good: if the things actually do throw themselves on our mercy why do we not act as their masters and accomodate them to our advantage? If what we call evil or torment are only evil or torment insofar as our mental apprehension endows them with those qualities then it lies within our power to change those qualities. And if we did have such a choice and were free from constraint we would be curiously mad to pull in the direction which hurts us most, endowing sickness, poverty or insolence with a bad and bitter taste when we could give them a pleasent one, Fortune simply furnishing us with the matter and leaving it to us to supply the form. Let us see whether a case can be made for what we call evil not being an evil in itself or (since it amounts to the same) whether at least it is up to us to endow it with a different savour and aspect. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1447:There is an old Greek saying that men are tormented not by things themselves but by what they think about them. If that assertion could be proved to be always true everywhere it would be an important point gained for the comforting of our wretched human condition. For if ills can only enter us through our judgement it would seem to be in our power either to despise them or to deflect them towards the good: if the things actually do throw themselves on our mercy why do we not act as their masters and accomodate them to our advantage? If what we call evil or torment are only evil or torment insofar as our mental apprehension endows them with those qualities when it lies within our power to change those qualities. And if we did have such a choice and were free from constraint we would be curiously mad to pull in the direction which hurts us most, endowing sickness, poverty or insolence with a bad and bitter taste when we could give them a pleasent one, Fortune simply furnishing us with the matter and leaving it to us to supply the form. Let us see whether a case can be made for what we call evil not being an evil in itself or (since it amounts to the same) whether at least it is up to us to endow it with a different savour and aspect. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1448:What will it be in the end? One flies to the east, the other to the west; they lose the principle, dispersing it in the crowd of incidents: after an hour of tempest, they know not what they seek: one is low, the other high, and a third wide. One catches at a word and a simile; another is no longer sensible of what is said in opposition to him, and thinks only of going on at his own rate, not of answering you: another, finding himself too weak to make good his rest, fears all, refuses all, at the very beginning, confounds the subject; or, in the very height of the dispute, stops short and is silent, by a peevish ignorance affecting a proud contempt or a foolishly modest avoidance of further debate: provided this man strikes, he cares not how much he lays himself open; the other counts his words and weighs them for reasons; another only brawls and uses the advantage of his lungs. Here’s one who learnedly concludes against himself, and another, who deafens you with prefaces and senseless digressions: another falls into downright railing, and seeks a quarrel after the German fashion, to disengage himself from a wit that presses too hard upon him: and a last man sees nothing into the reason of the thing, but draws a line of circumvallation about you of dialectic clauses, and the formulas of his art. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1449:READER, You have here an honest book; it does at the outset forewarn You that, in contriving the same, I have proposed to myself no other than a domestic and private end: I have had no consideration at all either to Your service or to my glory. My powers are not capable of any such design. I have dedicated it to the particular commodity of my kinsfolk and friends, so that, having lost me (which they must do shortly), they may therein recover some traits of my conditions and humours, and by that means preserve more whole, and more life-like, the knowledge they had of me. Had my intention been to seek the world's favour, I should surely have adorned myself with borrowed beauties: I desire therein to be viewed as I appear in mine own genuine, simple, and ordinary manner, without study and artifice: for it is myself I paint. My defects are therein to be read to the life, and any imperfections and my natural form, so far as public reverence hath permitted me. If I had lived among those nations, which (they say) yet dwell under the sweet liberty of nature's primitive laws, I assure thee I would most willingly have painted myself quite fully and quite naked. Thus, reader, myself am the matter of my book: there's no reason You should employ Your leisure about so frivolous and vain a subject. Therefore farewell. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1450:En cierta ocasión Demócrito comió en su mesa unos higos que sabían a miel y empezó de inmediato a indagar en su espíritu de dónde provenía tal dulzura inusitada. A fin de esclarecerlo, iba a levantarse de la mesa para mirar la situación del lugar donde se habían cogido los higos, pero la camarera, que había comprendido la causa de tal agitación, le dijo riendo que no se esforzara más por eso, porque los había puesto en un recipiente que había contenido miel. Demócrito se irritó pues le había privado de una ocasión para investigar, y hurtado una materia para su curiosidad. «¡Vaya!», le dijo, «me has disgustado. Sin embargo, no renunciaré a buscar la causa como si fuese natural». Y probablemente no habría dejado de encontrar alguna razón verdadera para un efecto falso y supuesto. Esta historia de un famoso y magno filósofo nos representa con suma claridad la pasión estudiosa que nos empuja a perseguir cosas de cuya adquisición no tenemos esperanza. Plutarco refiere un ejemplo similar de alguien que no quería que le aclarasen aquello que le suscitaba dudas para no perder el placer de investigarlo. Como aquel otro, que no quería que su médico le librara de la alteración de la fiebre para no perder el placer de calmarla bebiendo. Satius est superuacua discere quam nihil [Es mejor aprender cosas superfluas que nada (Séneca, Cartas a Lucilio)]. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1451:Let the tutor make his charge pass everything through a sieve and lodge nothing in his head on mere authority and trust: let not Aristotle's principles be principles to him any more than those of the Stoics or Epicureans. Let this variety of ideas be set before him; he will choose if he can; if not, he will remain in doubt. Only the fools are certain and assured. For if he embraces Xenophon's and Plato's opinions by his own reasoning, they will no longer be theirs, they will be his. He who follows another follows nothing. He finds nothing; indeed he seeks nothing. We are not under a king; let each one claim his own freedom. Let him know that he knows, at least. He must imbibe their ways of thinking, not learn their precepts. And let him boldly forget, if he wants, where he got them, but let him know how to make them his own. Truth and reason are common to everyone, and no more belong to the man who first spoke them than to the man who says them later. It is no more according to Plato than according to me, since he and I understand and see it the same way. The bees plunder the flowers here and there, but afterward they make of them honey, which is all theirs; it is no longer thyme or marjoram. Even so with the pieces borrowed from others; he will transform and blend them to make a work of his own, to wit, his judgment. His education, work, and study aim only at forming this. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1452:Paolo and Cass stood facing each other for a moment. The tall boy made an effort to smile, but couldn’t manage it. Cass’s heart still thrummed in her chest. “He’s not a bad person,” Paolo said abruptly. “Sometimes I think that I am, but he isn’t.” He looked away into the darkness. “What you do…,” Cass croaked out. “What I saw…” She focused on the outline of the closest rosebush, its naked branches crooked as a witch’s fingers. “Each man calls barbarism what is not his own practice--” Cass finished his sentence. “For indeed, it seems we have no other test of truth and reason than the example and pattern of the opinions and customs of the country in which we live.” It was another quote from Michel de Montaigne. “Do you really think that applies in this instance?” Paolo looked up. His dark eyes looked a little sad. “We live in the same place--you, me, Falco. But we live in very different worlds. Surely you understand that?” Cass didn’t know what to say. Paolo went on, a little defensively, “We have reasons. It’s not for you to judge us.” He thrust a square parcel, wrapped in rough muslin, into her arms. “There’s a note in there,” Paolo said, gesturing at the bundle. “I’m sure he’d rather you hear from him, not me.” He bowed slightly, his inky black hair falling forward to obscure part of his face. “Buona notte, Signorina Cassandra.” With that, he turned away, disappearing into the darkness in just a few long strides. ~ Fiona Paul,

1453:Democritus and Heraclitus were two philosophers, of whom the first, finding the condition of man vain and ridiculous, never went out in public but with a mocking and laughing face; whereas Heraclitus, having pity and compassion on this same condition of ours, wore a face perpetually sad, and eyes filled with tears. I prefer the first humor; not because it is pleasanter to laugh than to weep, but because it is more disdainful, and condemns us more than the other; and it seems to me that we can never be despised as much as we deserve. Pity and commiseration are mingled with some esteem for the thing we pity; the things we laugh at we consider worthless. I do not think there is as much unhappiness in us as vanity, nor as much malice as stupidity. We are not so full of evil as of inanity; we are not as wretched as we are worthless. Thus Diogenes, who pottered about by himself, rolling his tub and turning up his nose at the great Alexander, considering us as flies or bags of wind, was really a sharper and more stinging judge, to my taste, than Timon, who was surnamed the hater of men. For what we hate we take seriously. Timon wished us ill, passionately desired our ruin, shunned association with us as dangerous, as with wicked men depraved by nature. Diogenes esteemed us so little that contact with us could neither disturb him nor affect him, and avoided our company, not through fear of association with us, but through disdain of it; he considered us incapable of doing either good or evil.... Our own peculiar condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1454:If others were to look attentively into themselves as I do, they would find themselves, as I do, full of emptiness and tomfoolery. I cannot rid myself of them without getting rid of myself. We are all steeped in them, each as much as the other; but those who realize this get off, as I know, a little more cheaply. That commonly approved practice of looking elsewhere than at our own self has served our affairs well! Our self is an object full of dissatisfaction: we can see nothing there but wretchedness and vanity. So as not to dishearten us, Nature has very conveniently cast the action of our sight outwards. We are swept on downstream, but to struggle back towards our self against the current is a painful movement; thus does the sea, when driven against itself, swirl back in confusion. Everyone says: 'Look at the motions of the heavens, look at society, at this man's quarrel, that man's pulse, this other man's will and testament' - in other words always look upwards or downwards or sideways, or before or behind you. That commandment given us in ancient times by that god at Delphi was contrary to all expectation: 'Look back into your self; get to know your self; hold on to your self.' Bring back to your self your mind and your will which are being squandered elsewhere; you are draining and frittering your self away. Consolidate your self; rein your self back. They are cheating you, distracting you, robbing you of your self. Can you not see that this world of ours keeps its gave bent ever inwards and its eyes ever open to contemplate itself? It is always vanity in your case, within and without, but a vanity which is less, the less it extends. Except you alone, O Man, said that god, each creature first studies its own self, and, according to its needs, has limits to its labours and desires. Not one is as empty and needy as you, who embrace the universe: you are the seeker with no knowledge, the judge with no jurisdiction and, when all is done, the jester of the farce. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1455:Which philosophers would Alain suggest for practical living? Alain’s list overlaps nearly 100% with my own: Epicurus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Michel de Montaigne, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell. * Most-gifted or recommended books? The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Essays of Michel de Montaigne. * Favorite documentary The Up series: This ongoing series is filmed in the UK, and revisits the same group of people every 7 years. It started with their 7th birthdays (Seven Up!) and continues up to present day, when they are in their 50s. Subjects were picked from a wide variety of social backgrounds. Alain calls these very undramatic and quietly powerful films “probably the best documentary that exists.” TF: This is also the favorite of Stephen Dubner on page 574. Stephen says, “If you are at all interested in any kind of science or sociology, or human decision-making, or nurture versus nature, it is the best thing ever.” * Advice to your 30-year-old self? “I would have said, ‘Appreciate what’s good about this moment. Don’t always think that you’re on a permanent journey. Stop and enjoy the view.’ . . . I always had this assumption that if you appreciate the moment, you’re weakening your resolve to improve your circumstances. That’s not true, but I think when you’re young, it’s sort of associated with that. . . . I had people around me who’d say things like, ‘Oh, a flower, nice.’ A little part of me was thinking, ‘You absolute loser. You’ve taken time to appreciate a flower? Do you not have bigger plans? I mean, this the limit of your ambition?’ and when life’s knocked you around a bit and when you’ve seen a few things, and time has happened and you’ve got some years under your belt, you start to think more highly of modest things like flowers and a pretty sky, or just a morning where nothing’s wrong and everyone’s been pretty nice to everyone else. . . . Fortune can do anything with us. We are very fragile creatures. You only need to tap us or hit us in slightly the wrong place. . . . You only have to push us a little bit, and we crack very easily, whether that’s the pressure of disgrace or physical illness, financial pressure, etc. It doesn’t take very much. So, we do have to appreciate every day that goes by without a major disaster. ~ Timothy Ferriss,

1456:reading :::    50 Philosophy Classics: List of Books Covered:    1. Hannah Arendt - The Human Condition (1958)    2. Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics (4th century BC)    3. AJ Ayer - Language, Truth and Logic (1936)    4. Julian Baggini - The Ego Trick (2011)    5. Jean Baudrillard - Simulacra and Simulation (1981)    6. Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex (1952)    7. Jeremy Bentham - Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)    8. Henri Bergson - Creative Evolution (1911)    9. David Bohm - Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980)    10. Noam Chomsky - Understanding Power (2002)    11. Cicero - On Duties (44 BC)    12. Confucius - Analects (5th century BC)    13. Rene Descartes - Meditations (1641)    14. Ralph Waldo Emerson - Fate (1860)    15. Epicurus - Letters (3rd century BC)    16. Michel Foucault - The Order of Things (1966)    17. Harry Frankfurt - On Bullshit (2005)    18. Sam Harris - Free Will (2012)    19. GWF Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit (1803)    20. Martin Heidegger - Being and Time (1927)    21. Heraclitus - Fragments (6th century)    22. David Hume - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)    23. William James - Pragmatism (1904)    24. Daniel Kahneman - Thinking: Fast and Slow (2011)    25. Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason (1781)    26. Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling (1843)    27. Saul Kripke - Naming and Necessity (1972)    28. Thomas Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)    29. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Theodicy (1710)    30. John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)    31. Marshall McLuhan - The Medium is the Massage (1967)    32. Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince (1532)    33. John Stuart Mill - On Liberty (1859)    34. Michel de Montaigne - Essays (1580)    35. Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of Good (1970)    36. Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil (1886)    37. Blaise Pascal - Pensees (1670)    38. Plato - The Republic (4th century BC)    39. Karl Popper - The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934)    40. John Rawls - A Theory of Justice (1971)    41. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract (1762)    42. Bertrand Russell - The Conquest of Happiness (1920)    43. Michael Sandel - Justice (2009)    44. Jean Paul Sartre - Being and Nothingness (1943)    45. Arthur Schopenhauer - The World as Will and Representation (1818)    46. Peter Singer - The Life You Can Save (2009)    47. Baruch Spinoza - Ethics (1677)    48. Nassim Nicholas - Taleb The Black Swan (2007)    49. Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations (1953)    50. Slavoj Zizek - Living In The End Times (2010)    ~ Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Philosophy Classics,

1457:En cuanto al fin que nos proponen Plinio y Cicerón, la gloria, estoy muy lejos de tenerla en cuenta. La inclinación más contraria al retiro es la ambición. La gloria y el reposo no pueden alojarse en el mismo albergue. Por lo que veo, estos sólo tienen los brazos y las piernas fuera de la multitud; su alma y su intención continúan, más que nunca, atadas a ella: b | Tun’ uetule auriculis alienis colligis escas? [Entonces, viejo, ¿trabajas sólo para alimentar los oídos ajenos?] a | Se han echado atrás solo para saltar mejor, y para, con un movimiento más fuerte, penetrar más vivamente en la muchedumbre. ¿Queréis ver cómo se quedan cortos por un pelo? Comparemos las opiniones de dos filósofos [Epicuro y Séneca], y de dos escuelas muy diferentes, uno escribiendo a Idomeneo, otro a Lucillo, amigos suyos, para apartarlos de la administración de los negocios y de las grandezas, y dirigirlos hacia la soledad. Hasta ahora has vivido —dicen— nadando y flotando; ven a morir al puerto. Has entregado el resto de tu vida a la luz, entrega esta parte a la sombra. Es imposible abandonar las tareas si no renuncias a su fruto; así pues, deshazte de toda preocupación por el nombre y por la gloria. Existe el peligro de que el brillo de tus acciones pasadas te ilumine en exceso, y te siga hasta el interior de tu guarida. Abandona, junto a los demás placeres, el que brinda la aprobación ajena; y, en cuanto a tu ciencia y capacidad, no te importe: no perderán su eficacia porque tú valgas más que ellas. Acuérdate de aquel que, cuando le preguntaron para qué se esforzaba tanto en un arte que no podía ser conocido por mucha gente, respondió: «Me basta con pocos, me basta con uno, me basta con ninguno». Tenía razón. Tú y un compañero sois teatro de sobra suficiente el uno para el otro, o tú para ti mismo. Que el pueblo sea para ti uno solo, y que uno solo sea para ti todo el pueblo. Es una ambición cobarde pretender obtener gloria de la ociosidad y del ocultamiento. Tenemos que hacer como los animales, que borran su rastro a la entrada de su guarida. No has de buscar más que el mundo hable de ti, sino cómo has de hablarte a ti mismo. Retírate en tu interior, pero primero prepárate para acogerte; sería una locura confiarte a ti mismo si no te sabes gobernar. Uno puede equivocarse tanto en la soledad como en la compañía. Hasta que no te hayas vuelto tal que no oses tropezar ante ti, y hasta que no sientas vergüenza y respeto por ti mismo, c | obuersentur species honestae animo [que se ofrezcan imágenes honestas al espíritu], a | represéntate siempre en la imaginación a Catón, Foción y Aristides, ante los cuales aun los locos ocultarían sus faltas, y establécelos como censores de todas tus intenciones. Si estas se desvían, la reverencia por ellos te devolverá al camino. Te retendrán en la vía de contentarte contigo mismo, de no tomar nada en préstamo sino de ti, de detener y fijar el alma en unos pensamientos definidos y limitados donde pueda complacerse; y, tras haber entendido los verdaderos bienes, que se gozan a medida que se entienden, de contentarse con ellos, sin ansias de prolongar la vida ni el nombre. Este es el consejo de la verdadera y genuina filosofía, no de una filosofía ostentosa y verbal, como es la de los dos primeros. ~ Michel de Montaigne,

1458:Reading list (1972 edition)[edit] 1. Homer – Iliad, Odyssey 2. The Old Testament 3. Aeschylus – Tragedies 4. Sophocles – Tragedies 5. Herodotus – Histories 6. Euripides – Tragedies 7. Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War 8. Hippocrates – Medical Writings 9. Aristophanes – Comedies 10. Plato – Dialogues 11. Aristotle – Works 12. Epicurus – Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 13. Euclid – Elements 14. Archimedes – Works 15. Apollonius of Perga – Conic Sections 16. Cicero – Works 17. Lucretius – On the Nature of Things 18. Virgil – Works 19. Horace – Works 20. Livy – History of Rome 21. Ovid – Works 22. Plutarch – Parallel Lives; Moralia 23. Tacitus – Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania 24. Nicomachus of Gerasa – Introduction to Arithmetic 25. Epictetus – Discourses; Encheiridion 26. Ptolemy – Almagest 27. Lucian – Works 28. Marcus Aurelius – Meditations 29. Galen – On the Natural Faculties 30. The New Testament 31. Plotinus – The Enneads 32. St. Augustine – On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine 33. The Song of Roland 34. The Nibelungenlied 35. The Saga of Burnt Njál 36. St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica 37. Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy 38. Geoffrey Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 39. Leonardo da Vinci – Notebooks 40. Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 41. Desiderius Erasmus – The Praise of Folly 42. Nicolaus Copernicus – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 43. Thomas More – Utopia 44. Martin Luther – Table Talk; Three Treatises 45. François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel 46. John Calvin – Institutes of the Christian Religion 47. Michel de Montaigne – Essays 48. William Gilbert – On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies 49. Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote 50. Edmund Spenser – Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene 51. Francis Bacon – Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis 52. William Shakespeare – Poetry and Plays 53. Galileo Galilei – Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences 54. Johannes Kepler – Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World 55. William Harvey – On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 56. Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan 57. René Descartes – Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy 58. John Milton – Works 59. Molière – Comedies 60. Blaise Pascal – The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 61. Christiaan Huygens – Treatise on Light 62. Benedict de Spinoza – Ethics 63. John Locke – Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education 64. Jean Baptiste Racine – Tragedies 65. Isaac Newton – Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics 66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology 67. Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe 68. Jonathan Swift – A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal 69. William Congreve – The Way of the World 70. George Berkeley – Principles of Human Knowledge 71. Alexander Pope – Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man 72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu – Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws 73. Voltaire – Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 74. Henry Fielding – Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 75. Samuel Johnson – The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets ~ Mortimer J Adler,

1459:Reading list (1972 edition)[edit] 1. Homer - Iliad, Odyssey 2. The Old Testament 3. Aeschylus - Tragedies 4. Sophocles - Tragedies 5. Herodotus - Histories 6. Euripides - Tragedies 7. Thucydides - History of the Peloponnesian War 8. Hippocrates - Medical Writings 9. Aristophanes - Comedies 10. Plato - Dialogues 11. Aristotle - Works 12. Epicurus - Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 13. Euclid - Elements 14.Archimedes - Works 15. Apollonius of Perga - Conic Sections 16. Cicero - Works 17. Lucretius - On the Nature of Things 18. Virgil - Works 19. Horace - Works 20. Livy - History of Rome 21. Ovid - Works 22. Plutarch - Parallel Lives; Moralia 23. Tacitus - Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania 24. Nicomachus of Gerasa - Introduction to Arithmetic 25. Epictetus - Discourses; Encheiridion 26. Ptolemy - Almagest 27. Lucian - Works 28. Marcus Aurelius - Meditations 29. Galen - On the Natural Faculties 30. The New Testament 31. Plotinus - The Enneads 32. St. Augustine - On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine 33. The Song of Roland 34. The Nibelungenlied 35. The Saga of Burnt Njal 36. St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica 37. Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy 38. Geoffrey Chaucer - Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 39. Leonardo da Vinci - Notebooks 40. Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 41. Desiderius Erasmus - The Praise of Folly 42. Nicolaus Copernicus - On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 43. Thomas More - Utopia 44. Martin Luther - Table Talk; Three Treatises 45. François Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel 46. John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion 47. Michel de Montaigne - Essays 48. William Gilbert - On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies 49. Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote 50. Edmund Spenser - Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene 51. Francis Bacon - Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis 52. William Shakespeare - Poetry and Plays 53. Galileo Galilei - Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences 54. Johannes Kepler - Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World 55. William Harvey - On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 56. Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan 57. René Descartes - Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy 58. John Milton - Works 59. Molière - Comedies 60. Blaise Pascal - The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 61. Christiaan Huygens - Treatise on Light 62. Benedict de Spinoza - Ethics 63. John Locke - Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education 64. Jean Baptiste Racine - Tragedies 65. Isaac Newton - Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics 66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology 67.Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe 68. Jonathan Swift - A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal 69. William Congreve - The Way of the World 70. George Berkeley - Principles of Human Knowledge 71. Alexander Pope - Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man 72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu - Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws 73. Voltaire - Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 74. Henry Fielding - Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 75. Samuel Johnson - The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets    ~ Mortimer J Adler,