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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

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Books Are Pleasant, But

Michel De Montaigne

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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.

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The Plague Of Man Is Boasting Of His Knowledge.

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.

Men Are Tormented By The Opinions They Have Of Things, And Not The Things Themselves.

He Loves Little Who Loves By Rule.

Our Religion Is Made To Eradicate Vices, Instead It Encourages Them, Covers Them, And Nurtures Them.

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.

Praise Is Always Pleasing, Let It Come From Whom, Or Upon What Account It Will.

The Customs And Practices Of Life In Society Sweep Us Along.

It Is Only Certain That There Is Nothing Certain, And That Nothing Is More Miserable Or More Proud Than Man.

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.

The Only Thing Certain Is Nothing Is Certain.

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.

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.

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?

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.

We Are Christians By The Same Title As We Are Natives Of Perigord Or Germany.

To Understand Via The Heart Is Not To Understand.

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.

Confidence In The Goodness Of Another Is Good Proof Of One's Own Goodness.

He Who Fears He Will Suffer, Already Suffers From His Fear.

Every One Rushes Elsewhere And Into The Future, Because No One Wants To Face One's Own Inner Self.

Learned We May Be With Another Man's Learning: We Can Only Be Wise With Wisdom Of Our Own.

The Diversity Of Physical Arguments And Opinions Embraces All Sorts Of Methods.

The Most Beautiful Lives, To My Mind, Are Those That Conform To The Common Human Pattern, With Order, But Without Miracle And Without Eccentricity.

Report Followeth Not All Goodness, Except Difficulty And Rarity Be Joined Thereto.

Poverty Of Goods Is Easily Cured; Poverty Of Soul, Impossible.

The World Is All A Carcass And Vanity, The Shadow Of A Shadow, A Play And In One Word, Just Nothing.

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.

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.

He Who Falls Obstinate In His Courage, If He Falls He Fights From His Knees.

He That I Am Reading Seems Always To Have The Most Force.

Things Seem Greater By Imagination Than They Are In Effect.

Nothing Fixes A Thing So Intensely In The Memory As The Wish To Forget It.

To How Many Blockheads Of My Time Has A Cold And Taciturn Demeanor Procured The Credit Of Prudence And Capacity!

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.

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.

The Great And Glorious Masterpiece Of Humanity Is To Know How To Live With A Purpose.

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.

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?

I Know Well What I Am Fleeing From But Not What I Am In Search Of.

Finding Yourself

I Aim Here Only At Revealing Myself, Who Will Perhaps Be Different Tomorrow, If I Learn Something New Which Changes Me.

A Good Marriage (if Any There Be) Refuses The Conditions Of Love And Endeavors To Present Those Of Amity.

I Do Not Teach. I Relate.

Custom Is A Second Nature, And No Less Powerful.

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.

Our Own Peculiar Human Condition Is That We Are As Fit To Be Laughed At As Able To Laugh.

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.

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?

The Shortest Way To Arrive At Glory Would Be To Do That For Conscience Which We Do For Glory.

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.

Glory And Repose Are Things That Cannot Possibly Inhabit In One And The Same Place.

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.

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.

Saying Is One Thing And Doing Is Another; We Are To Consider The Sermon And The Preacher Distinctly And Apart.

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.

I May Indeed Very Well Happen To Contradict Myself; But Truth, As Demades Said, I Do Not Contradict.

I Had Rather Complain Of Ill-fortune Than Be Ashamed Of Victory.

When I Play With My Cat, Who Knows Whether I Do Not Make Her More Sport Than She Makes Me?

It Would Be Better To Have No Laws At All, Than To Have Too Many.

Habituation Puts To Sleep The Eye Of Our Judgment.

To Forbid Us Anything Is To Make Us Have A Mind To 't.

Law Of Attraction

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.

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.

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.

For Me, Who Only Desire To Become Wise, Not More Learned Or Eloquent, These Logical Or Aristotelian Dispositions Of Parts Are Of No Use.

We Trouble Our Life By Thoughts About Death, And Our Death By Thoughts About Life.

There Is No Desire More Natural Than The Desire Of Knowledge. (il N'est Desir Plus Naturel Que Le Desir De Connaissance)

I Must Accommodate My History To The Hour: I May Presently Change, Not Only By Fortune, But Also By Intention.

And Not To Serve For A Table-talk.

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.

To Philosophize Is To Learn To Die.

A Man Who Fears Suffering Is Already Suffering From What He Fears.

Who Does Not In Some Sort Live To Others, Does Not Live Much To Himself.

Any Person Of Honor Chooses Rather To Lose His Honor Than To Lose His Conscience.

A Man Must Either Imitate The Vicious Or Hate Them.

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.

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.

There Is No Greater Enemy To Those Who Would Please Than Expectation.

Once You Have Decided To Keep A Certain Pile, It Is No Longer Yours; For You Can't Spend It.

I Had Rather Fashion My Mind Than Furnish It.

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.

The Dispersing And Scattering Our Names Into Many Mouths, We Call Making Them More Great.

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.

There Is No Conversation More Boring Than The One Where Everybody Agrees.

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.

'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.

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.

Amongst So Many Borrowed Things, Am Glad If I Can Steal One, Disguising And Altering It For Some New Service.

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.

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.

There Is Nothing So Extreme That Is Not Allowed By The Custom Of Some Nation Or Other.

No Man Profiteth But By The Loss Of Others.

I Would Rather Be Old For A Shorter Time Than Be Old Before My Time.

Vexations May Be Petty, But They Are Vexations Still.

I Love A Friendship That Flatters Itself In The Sharpness And Vigor Of Its Communications.

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.

A Man Is Not Hurt So Much By What Happens, As By His Opinion Of What Happens.

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.

When I Play With My Cat, Who Knows Whether She Is Not Amusing Herself With Me More Than I With Her.

Ambition Sufficiently Plagues Her Proselytes, By Keeping Themselves Always In Show, Like The Statue Of A Public Place.

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.

Valor Is Stability, Not Of Legs And Arms, But Of Courage And The Soul.

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.

To Philosophize Is Nothing Else Than To Prepare Oneself For Death.

If I Were Of The Trade, I Should Naturalize Art As Much As They "artialize" Nature.

The Most Profound Joy Has More Of Gravity Than Of Gaiety In It.

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.

We Must Not Attach Knowledge To The Mind, We Have To Incorporate It There.

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.

Children's Plays Are Not Sports, And Should Be Deemed As Their Most Serious Actions.

Take Care That Old Age Does Not Wrinkle Your Spirit Even More Than Your Face.

I Want Death To Find Me Planting My Cabbages.

Intemperance Is The Plaque Of Sensuality, And Temperance Is Not Its Bane But Its Seasoning.

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.

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?

We Need To Interpret Interpretations More Than To Interpret Things.

No Man Is So Exquisitely Honest Or Upright In Living, But That Ten Times In His Life He Might Not Lawfully Be Hanged.

Fear Sometimes Adds Wings To The Heels, And Sometimes Nails Them To The Ground, And Fetters Them From Moving.

The Pleasantest Things In The World Are Pleasant Thoughts, And The Great Art Of Life Is To Have As Many Of Them As Possible.

Inspirational Life

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.

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.

Virtue Can Have Naught To Do With Ease. . . . It Craves A Steep And Thorny Path.

Few Men Are Admired By Their Servants.

No Man Is Exempt From Saying Silly Things; The Mischief Is To Say Them Deliberately.

There Is Nothing Useless In Nature; Not Even Uselessness Itself

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?

We Seem Ambitious God's Whole Work To Undo. ...with New Diseases On Ourselves We War, And With New Physic, A Worse Engine Far.

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.

.. 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.

There Is As Much Difference Between Us And Ourselves As There Is Between Us And Others.

How Often Our Involuntary Facial Motions Testify To The Thoughts We Were Keeping Secret, And Betray Us To Those Around!

Keeping Secrets

The Strangest, Most Generous, And Proudest Of All Virtues Is True Courage.

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.

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.

God Defend Me From Myself.

There Were Many Terrible Things In My Life And Most Of Them Never Happened.

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.

We Can Be Knowledgeable With Other Men's Knowledge, But We Cannot Be Wise With Other Men's Wisdom.

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.

Obstinacy And Contention Are Common Qualities, Most Appearing In, And Best Becoming, A Mean And Illiterate Soul.

Make Use Of Life While You Have It. Whether You Have Lived Enough Depends Upon Yourself, Not On The Number Of Your Years.

The Souls Of Emperors And Cobblers Are Cast In The Same Mould

Difficulty Is A Coin The Learned Make Use Of Like Jugglers, To Conceal The Inanity Of Their Art.

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.

A Well-bred Man Is Always Sociable And Complaisant.

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.

All General Judgments Are Loose And Imperfect

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.

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.

Self Confidence

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.

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.

Let [children] Be Able To Do All Things, And Love To Do Only The Good.

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.

It Is An Absolute Perfection... To Get The Very Most Out Of One's Individuality.

I Am Myself The Matter Of My Book.

If By Being Overstudious, We Impair Our Health And Spoil Our Good Humor, Let Us Give It Up.

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]

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.

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.

God Sends The Cold According To The Coat.

A Speech Belongs Half To The Speaker And Half To The Listener.

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.

It Is The Mind That Maketh Good Or Ill, That Maketh Wretch Or Happy, Rich Or Poor.

There Is No Doubt That Greek And Latin Are Great And Handsome Ornaments, But We Buy Them Too Dear.

We Are Born To Inquire Into Truth; It Belongs To A Greater To Possess It

I Speak To The Paper, As I Speak To The First Person I Meet.

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.

We Must Learn To Suffer What We Cannot Evade.

The Middle Sort Of Historians (of Which The Most Part Are) Spoil All; They Will Chew Our Meat For Us.

Some, Either From Being Glued To Vice By A Natural Attachment, Or From Long Habit, No Longer Recognize Its Ugliness.

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?

We Call Comeliness A Mischance In The First Respect, Which Belongs Principally To The Face.

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.

A Wise Man Sees As Much As He Ought, Not As Much As He Can.

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.

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.

It Is Putting A Very High Price On One's Conjectures To Have Someone Roasted Alive On Their Account.

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.

Every Day I Hear Stupid People Say Things That Are Not Stupid.

The Truth Of These Days Is Not That Which Really Is, But What Every Man Persuades Another Man To Believe.

A Liar Would Be Brave Toward God, While He Is A Coward Toward Men; For A Lie Faces God, And Shrinks From Man.

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.

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.

We Are Never Present With, But Always Beyond Ourselves; Fear, Desire, Hope, Still Push Us On Toward The Future.

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.

In Plain Truth, It Is No Want, But Rather Abundance That Creates Avarice.

If There Is Such A Thing As A Good Marriage, It Is Because It Resembles Friendship Rather Than Love.

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?

It Costs An Unreasonable Woman No More To Pass Over One Reason Than Another; They Cherish Themselves Most Where They Are Most Wrong.

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.

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.

And Obstinacy Is The Sister Of Constancy, At Least In Vigour And Stability.

It Is Setting A High Value Upon Our Opinions To Roast Men And Women Alive On Account Of Them.

We Cannot Fail In Following Nature.

For Truth Itself Has Not The Privilege To Be Spoken At All Times And In All Sorts.

Those That Will Combat Use And Custom By The Strict Rules Of Grammar Do But Jest

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.

The Beauty Of Stature Is The Only Beauty Of Men.

Women When They Marry Buy A Cat In The Bag.

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.

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