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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
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All Opinions In The

Michel De Montaigne
...
All Opinions In The World Agree In This, That Pleasure Is Our End, Although They Differ As To The Means Of Attaining It.

Understanding the Quote: "all opinions in the world agree in this, that pleasure is our..."

This quote by Michel De Montaigne reflects deeply on the theme of mean. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Mean, Differences, World, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Michel de Montaigne interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Michel De Montaigne

Michel De Montaigne is celebrated for insightful thoughts on mean and differences. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Mean
Differences
World
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Stubborn And Ardent Clinging To One's Opinion Is The Best Proof Of Stupidity.
Stupid
Stubborn
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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.
Love
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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.
Hate
Hunting
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Learning Must Not Only Lodge With Us: We Must Marry Her.
Educational
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If By Being Overstudious, We Impair Our Health And Spoil Our Good Humor, Let Us Give It Up.
Giving
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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.
Beautiful
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Children's Games Are Hardly Games. Children Are Never More Serious Than When They Play.
Inspirational
Children
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Reason Has So Many Forms That We Do Not Know Which To Choose-experiment Has No Fewer.
Science
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Form
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.
Suffering
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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.
Time
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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.
Hurt
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A Foreign War Is A Lot Milder Than A Civil War.
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Nobody Is Exempt From Saying Stupid Things, The Harm Is To Do It Presumptuously.
Stupid
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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.
Running
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I Walk Firmer And More Secure Uphill Than Down.
Challenges
Walks
Secure
Silence And Modesty Are Very Valuable Qualities In Conversation.
Silence
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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.
Respect
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Tis Faith Alone That Vividly And Certainly Comprehends The Deep Mysteries Of Our Religion.
Christian
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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.
Ornaments
Might
Opinion
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.
Men
Looks
Excess
The Profit We Possess After Study Is To Have Become Better And Wiser.
Educational
Study
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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.
Kings
Flattery
Vermin
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.
Imagination
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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.
Men
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There Is Perhaps No More Obvious Vanity Than To Write Of It So Vainly.
Writing
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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.
Past
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But Sure There Is Need Of Other Remedies Than Dreaming, A Weak Contention Of Art Against Nature.
Dream
Art
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The Truth Of These Days Is Not That Which Really Is, But What Every Man Persuades Another Man To Believe.
Truth
Believe
Men
I Am Disgusted With Innovation, In Whatever Guise, And With Reason, For I Have Seen Very Harmful Effects Of It.
Innovation
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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.
Women
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He Who Establishes His Argument By Noise And Command Shows That His Reason Is Weak.
Anger
Noise
Arguing
He Who Does Not Live In Some Degree For Others, Hardly Lives For Himself.
Degrees
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It Is In The Enjoyment And Not In Mere Possession That Makes For Happiness.
Possession
Enjoyment
Mere
I Have Seen People Rude By Being Over-polite.
People
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Polite
We Seem Ambitious God's Whole Work To Undo. ...with New Diseases On Ourselves We War, And With New Physic, A Worse Engine Far.
War
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Ambitious
It Is Commonly Seene By Experience, That Excellent Memories Do Rather Accompany Weake Judgements.
Memories
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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.
Food
Wine
Sleep
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.
Marriage
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Despair
I Determine Nothing; I Do Not Comprehend Things; I Suspend Judgment; I Examine.
Judgment
Determine
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.
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The World Is All A Carcass And Vanity, The Shadow Of A Shadow, A Play And In One Word, Just Nothing.
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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.
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There Is Nothing In Which A Horse's Power Is Better Revealed Than In A Neat, Clean Stop.
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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.
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All Opinions In The World Agree In This, That Pleasure Is Our End, Although They Differ As To The Means Of Attaining It.
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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.
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The Laws Of Conscience, Though We Ascribe Them To Nature, Actually Come From Custom.
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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.
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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?
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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.
Play
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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.
Business
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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.
Men
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Amongst All Other Vices There Is None I Hate More Than Cruelty, Both By Nature And Judgment, As The Extremest Of All Vices.
Hate
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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.
Slavery
Losing
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I Have Often Seen People Uncivil By Too Much Civility, And Tiresome In Their Courtesy.
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In Plain Truth, Lying Is An Accursed Vice. We Are Not Men, Nor Have Any Other Tie Upon Another, But By Our Word.
Life
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Lying
There Are Few Men Who Dare To Publish To The World The Prayers They Make To Almighty God.
God
Prayer
Men
All We Do Is To Look After The Opinions And Learning Of Others: We Ought To Make Them Our Own.
Looks
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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.
Book
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The Way Of The World Is To Make Laws, But Follow Custom.
Law
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World
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.
Men
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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.
Knowledge
Drug
Decay
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.
Horse
Heart
Soul
Is There A Polity Better Ordered, The Offices Better Distributed, And More Inviolably Observed And Maintained, Than That Of Bees?
Office
Bees
Insects
Women Are More Susceptible To Pain Than To Pleasure.
Pain
Emotion
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Happiness Involves Working Toward Meaningful Goals.
Happiness
Meaningful
Goal
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
Believe
Reality
Giving
Every Movement Reveals Us.
Movement
It Is Setting A High Value Upon Our Opinions To Roast Men And Women Alive On Account Of Them.
Men
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Whoever Will Be Cured Of Ignorance, Let Him Confess It.
Ignorance
A Man Must Learn To Endure Patiently What He Cannot Avoid Conveniently.
Inspirational
Men
Endure
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.
Life
Order
Games
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.
Eye
Piercings
Letters
Every Day I Hear Stupid People Say Things That Are Not Stupid.
Stupid
People
Foolishness
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.
Ambition
Winning
Doubt
Obstinacy And Contention Are Common Qualities, Most Appearing In, And Best Becoming, A Mean And Illiterate Soul.
Mean
Soul
Quality
You Have Your Face Bare; I Am All Face.
Faces
Your Face
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.
Truth
Self
Talking
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.
Military
Men
Giving
The First Distinction Among Men, And The First Consideration That Gave One Precedence Over Another, Was Doubtless The Advantage Of Beauty.
Beauty
Men
Firsts
It Is Only Certain That There Is Nothing Certain, And That Nothing Is More Miserable Or More Proud Than Man.
Science
Men
Proud
We Are All Of Us Richer Than We Think We Are.
Thinking
Blessing
Wealth
In Plain Truth, It Is No Want, But Rather Abundance That Creates Avarice.
Avarice Greed
Want
Abundance
Friendship Is A Creature Formed For A Companionship Not For A Herd.
Companionship
Herds
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Ambition Is Not A Vice Of Little People.
Inspirational
Ambition
People
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.
Men
Reign
Masterpiece
This Very Rome That We Behold Deserves Our Love ...: The Only Common And Universal City.
Rome
Cities
Our Love
Man In Sooth Is A Marvellous, Vain, Fickle, And Unstable Subject.
Men
Fickle
Vain
In My Opinion, Every Rich Man Is A Miser.
Men
Opinion
Rich
As Soon As Women Become Ours We Are No Longer Theirs.
Possession
... Whoever Believes Anything Esteems That It Is A Work Of Charity To Persuade Another Of It.
Believe
Charity
Belief
Meditation Is A Powerful And Full Study As Can Effectually Taste And Employ Themselves.
Powerful
Meditation
Taste
Now, Of All The Benefits That Virtue Confers Upon Us, The Contempt Of Death Is One Of The Greatest.
Life
Death
Benefits
A Wise Man Never Loses Anything, If He Has Himself.
Wise
Being Yourself
Men
The Soul Which Has No Fixed Purpose In Life Is Lost; To Be Everywhere, Is To Be Nowhere.
Cute
Soul
Lost Friendship
To Say Less Of Yourself Than Is True Is Stupidity, Not Modesty. To Pay Yourself Less Than You Are Worth Is Cowardice And Pusillanimity.
Self
Stupidity
Pay
I Would Rather Be An Expert On Me Than On Cicero
Experts
I May Indeed Very Well Happen To Contradict Myself; But Truth, As Demades Said, I Do Not Contradict.
May
Contradiction
Said
I Know Well What I Am Fleeing From But Not What I Am In Search Of.
Discovery
Finding Yourself
Fleeing
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.
Sports
Running
Children
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.
Life
Thinking
Thoughtful
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.
Travel
School
Order
The Good Opinion Of The Vulgar Is Injurious.
Opinion
Popularity
Vulgar
Saying Is One Thing And Doing Is Another; We Are To Consider The Sermon And The Preacher Distinctly And Apart.
Hypocrisy
Preacher
Sermons
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.
World
Incredibles
Aids
Children's Plays Are Not Sports, And Should Be Deemed As Their Most Serious Actions.
Sports
Wisdom
Children
There Is A Certain Amount Of Purpose, Acquiescence, And Satisfaction In Nursing One's Melancholy.
Sadness
Nursing
Self
Meditation Is A Rich And Powerful Method Of Study For Anyone Who Knows How To Examine His Mind.
Powerful
Meditation
Mind
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.
Philosophy
Medicine
Psychology
Have You Known How To Take Rest? You Have Done More Than He Who Hath Taken Empires And Cities.
Taken
Cities
Done
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.
Country
Honesty
Exercise
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.
Law
Numbers
Justice
The Land Of Marriage Has This Peculiarity: That Strangers Are Desirous Of Inhabiting It, While Its Natural Inhabitants Would Willingly Be Banished From Thence.
Land
Stranger
Natural
Men Are Nothing Until They Are Excited.
Men
Excited
There Is A Plague On Man, The Opinion That He Knows Something.
Men
Opinion
Plague
If Ordinary People Complain That I Speak Too Much Of Myself, I Complain That They Do Not Even Think Of Themselves.
Thinking
People
Ordinary
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.
Health
Men
Sweat
How Many Condemnations I Have Witnessed More Criminal Than The Crime!
Inspirational
Criminals
Crime
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.
Beautiful
Appreciation
Horse
No Pleasure Is Fully Delightful Without Communications, And No Delight Absolute Except Imparted.
Communication
Delight
Pleasure
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.
Men
Different
Portraiture
I Have Ever Loved To Repose Myself, Whether Sitting Or Lying, With My Heels As High Or Higher Than My Head.
Lying
Sitting
Higher
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.
Science
Medicine
Bitterness
Other People Do Not See You At All, But Guess At You By Uncertain Conjectures.
People
Conjecture
Uncertain
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.
Wisdom
Honesty
Liars
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
Sight
Doors
Grace
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.
Children
Training
Principles
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.
Men
World
Rules Of Life
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.
Educational
Ideas
Words Of Wisdom
All General Judgments Are Loose And Imperfect
Judgement
Imperfect
Judgment
Most Pleasures Embrace Us But To Strangle.
Pleasure
Embrace
We Are Born To Inquire Into Truth; It Belongs To A Greater To Possess It
Born
Greater
It Is The Mind That Maketh Good Or Ill, That Maketh Wretch Or Happy, Rich Or Poor.
Attitude
Fear
Rich Or Poor
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.
Body
Consideration
Share
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.
Grief
Soul
Sorrow
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.
Hope
Children
Thinking
The World Is But A Perpetual See-saw.
World
Saws
Perpetual
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.
Hurt
Giving
Royalty
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.
Men
Long
Use
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.
Moving
Men
Smell
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.
Sight
Human Nature
Charm
A Man Must Keep A Little Back Shop Where He Can Be Himself Without Reserve. In Solitude Alone Can He Know True Freedom.
Freedom
Men
Solitude
It Is Easier To Sacrifice Great Than Little Things.
Sacrifice
Littles
Little Things
The Oldest And Best Known Evil Was Ever More Supportable Than One That Was New And Untried.
Evil
Wickedness
Known
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.
Character
Doors
Example
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.
Men
Hands
Giving
It Is An Absolute Perfection... To Get The Very Most Out Of One's Individuality.
Perfection
Individuality
Absolutes
Rejoice In The Things That Are Present; All Else Is Beyond Thee.
Live In The Moment
Past Present Future
Mindfulness
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.
Book
Health
Loss
My Trade And Art Is To Live.
Art
Art Is
Trade
I See Men Ordinarily More Eager To Discover A Reason For Things Than To Find Out Whether The Things Are So.
Knowledge
Men
Libertarian
Things Seem Greater By Imagination Than They Are In Effect.
Imagination
Effects
Greater
Wine Is The Benevolent God, Who Gives Back Gaiety To Men And Restores Youth To The Old.
Wine
Men
Giving
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.
Heart
Yield
Self
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.
Careers
Two
Space
There Is No Course Of Life So Weak And Sottish As That Which Is Managed By Order, Method, And Discipline.
Order
Discipline
Virtue
The Diversity Of Physical Arguments And Opinions Embraces All Sorts Of Methods.
Diversity
Opinion
Argument
I Turn My Gaze Inward. I Fix It There And Keep It Busy. I Look Inside Myself. I Continually Observe Myself.
Inward
Looks
Busy
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.
Giving
Stupidity
Quality
Our Wisdom And Deliberation For The Most Part Follow The Lead Of Chance.
Wisdom
Chance
Deliberation
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.
Men
Practice
Waiting
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.
Volume
Stomach
Temperance
Let Us Permit Nature To Have Her Way. She Understands Her Business Better Than We Do.
Nature
Rivers
Earth Day
The Plague Of Man Is Boasting Of His Knowledge.
Men
Plague
Boast
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.
Ugly
Action
Confession
We Are More Solicitous That Men Speak Of Us, Than How They Speak.
Men
Speak
Fame
All Other Knowledge Is Hurtful To Him Who Has Not Honesty And Good-nature
Honesty
Hurtful
Good Nature
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?
Art
Children
Philosophy
Custom Is A Second Nature, And No Less Powerful.
Powerful
Tradition
Customs
If I Were Of The Trade, I Should Naturalize Art As Much As They "artialize" Nature.
Art
Nature
Should
The Most Beautiful Lives, To My Mind, Are Those That Conform To The Common Human Pattern, With Order, But Without Miracle And Without Eccentricity.
Beautiful
Order
Miracle
A Speech Belongs Half To The Speaker And Half To The Listener.
Half
Speech
Listeners
Our Zeal Works Wonders, Whenever It Supports Our Inclination Toward Hatred, Cruelty, Ambition.
Ambition
Support
Hatred
The Souls Of Emperors And Cobblers Are Cast In The Same Mould
Soul
Cobblers
Mould
The Same Reason That Makes Us Chide And Brawl And Fall Out With Any Of Our Neighbors, Causeth A War To Follow Between Princes.
War
Fall
Reason
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.
War
Book
Exercise
Honesty Is A Question Of Right And Wrong, Not A Matter Of Policy
Honesty
Matter
Policy
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.
Educational
Men
People
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.
Freedom
School
Self Confidence
It Is Not Without Good Reason, That He Who Has Not A Good Memory Should Never Take Upon Him The Trade Of Lying.
Honesty
Memories
Lying
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.
Men
Giving
Answers
How Many Quarrels, And How Important, Has The Doubt As To The Meaning Of This Syllable "hoc" Produced For The World!
Doubt
Important
World
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.
Marriage
Race
Practice
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!
Hope
Desire
Infinity
And Not To Serve For A Table-talk.
Tables
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.
Strong
Kings
Light
The Finest Lives In My Opinion Are The Common Model, Without Miracle And Without Extravagance.
Life
Miracle
Extravagance
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.
Life
Book
Taken
Lying Is A Terrible Vice, It Testifies That One Despises God, But Fears Men.
God
Lying
Men
I Had Rather Complain Of Ill-fortune Than Be Ashamed Of Victory.
Victory
Complaining
Fortune
The Honor We Receive From Those That Fear Us, Is Not Honor; Those Respects Are Paid To Royalty And Not To Me.
Respect
Honor
Royalty
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.
Art
Civilization
America
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.
Wisdom
Exercise
Numbers
True Freedom Is To Have Power Over Oneself For Everything.
Freedom
Power
Self
There Is No Desire More Natural Than The Desire Of Knowledge. (il N'est Desir Plus Naturel Que Le Desir De Connaissance)
Desire
Natural
Plus
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.
Respect
Ties
Tree
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
Fear
Passion
World
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.
Real
Ideas
People
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.
Beauty
Sex
Confused
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.
Eye
Wind
Understanding
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