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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.

-Michel De Montaigne

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Business In A Certain

Michel De Montaigne

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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.

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

If I Speak Of Myself In Different Ways, That Is Because I Look At Myself In Different Ways.

I Enjoy Books As Misers Enjoy Treasures, Because I Know I Can Enjoy Them Whenever I Please.

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.

Almost All The Opinions We Have Are Taken On Authority And On Credit.

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.

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

We Have Power Over Nothing Except Our Will.

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.

Nature Has, Herself, I Fear, Imprinted In Man A Kind Of Instinct To Inhumanity.

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.

This Notion [skepticism] Is More Clearly Understood By Asking "what Do I Know?"

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

In General I Ask For Books That Make Use Of Learning, Not Those That Build It Up.

All Other Knowledge Is Hurtful To Him Who Has Not Honesty And Good-nature

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.

Men ... Are Not Agreed About Any One Thing, Not Even That Heaven Is Over Our Heads.

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.

A Wise Man Loses Nothing, If He But Save Himself.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Miracles Arise From Our Ignorance Of Nature, Not From Nature Itself.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Even Opinion Is Of Force Enough To Make Itself To Be Espoused At The Expense Of Life.

To Philosophize Is To Learn To Die.

I Leaf Through Books, I Do Not Study Them. What I Retain Of Them Is Something I No Longer Recognize As Anyone Else's.

What A Man Hates, He Takes Seriously.

Certainly, If He Still Has Himself, A Man Of Understanding Has Lost Nothing.

You Have Your Face Bare; I Am All Face.

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

Everything Must Not Always Be Said, For That Would Be Folly.

I Listen With Attention To The Judgment Of All Men; But So Far As I Can Remember, I Have Followed None But My Own.

Not Being Able To Govern Events, I Govern Myself.

Law Of Attraction

Friendship Is The Highest Degree Of Perfection In Society.

There Is No Passion So Contagious As That Of Fear.

Other People Do Not See You At All, But Guess At You By Uncertain Conjectures.

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

We Should Rather Examine, Who Is Better Learned, Than Who Is More Learned.

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.

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.

A Little Of Everything And Nothing Thoroughly, After The French Fashion.

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.

A Man Must Either Imitate The Vicious Or Hate Them.

Oh These Foolish Men! They Could Not Create So Much As A Worm, But They Create Gods By The Dozens.

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.

A Strong Memory Is Commonly Coupled With Infirm Judgment.

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.

It Is Easier To Write An Indifferent Poem Than To Understand A Good One.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Things Are Not Bad In Themselves, But Our Cowardice Makes Them So.

For Table-talk, I Prefer The Pleasant And Witty Before The Learned And The Grave; In Bed, Beauty Before Goodness.

Why Do People Respect The Package Rather Than The Man?

I Study Myself More Than Any Other Subject. That Is My Metaphysics, That Is My Physics.

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.

The Judgment Is An Utensil Proper For All Subjects, And Will Have An Oar In Everything.

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.

My Business Is Only To Keep Myself In Motion, Whilst Motion Pleases Me; I Only Walk For The Walk's Sake.

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.

The Clatter Of Arms Drowns Out The Voice Of Law.

There Is Nothing In Which A Horse's Power Is Better Revealed Than In A Neat, Clean Stop.

Learning Must Not Only Lodge With Us: We Must Marry Her.

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

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.

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.

There Is A Plague On Man, The Opinion That He Knows Something.

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.

I Would Rather Be An Expert On Me Than On Cicero

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.

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.

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.

There Are No Truths, Only Moments Of Claryty Passing For Answers.

In Love, 'tis No Other Than Frantic Desire For That Which Flies From Us.

No Noble Thing Can Be Done Without Risks.

To Honor Him Whom We Have Made Is Far From Honoring Him That Hath Made Us.

All We Do Is To Look After The Opinions And Learning Of Others: We Ought To Make Them Our Own.

My Art And Profession Is To Live.

To Philosophize Is To Doubt.

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.

Words Of Wisdom

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.

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.

My Life Has Been Full Of Terrible Misfortunes Most Of Which Never Happened.

Not Being Able To Govern Events, I Govern Myself, And Apply Myself To Them If They Will Not Apply Themselves To Me.

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?

Cowardice Is The Mother Of Cruelty.

Women Are More Susceptible To Pain Than To Pleasure.

If Ordinary People Complain That I Speak Too Much Of Myself, I Complain That They Do Not Even Think Of Themselves.

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.

I Do Not Teach. I Relate.

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.

Fame And Tranquility Can Never Be Bedfellows.

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

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.

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.

There Are As Many And Innumerable Degrees Of Wit, As There Are Cubits Between This And Heaven.

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.

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.

All Of The Days Go Toward Death And The Last One Arrives There.

And Truly Philosophy Is But Sophisticated Poetry. Whence Do Those Ancient Writers Derive All Their Authority But From The Poets?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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

Who Ever Saw A Doctor Use The Prescription Of His Colleague Without Cutting Out Or Adding Something?

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.

I Walk Firmer And More Secure Uphill Than Down.

Lying Is A Terrible Vice, It Testifies That One Despises God, But Fears Men.

The Most Evident Token And Apparent Sign Of True Wisdom Is A Constant And Unconstrained Rejoicing.

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

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

Tis Faith Alone That Vividly And Certainly Comprehends The Deep Mysteries Of Our Religion.

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.

O Human Creature,you Are The Investigator Without Knowledge, The Magistrate Without Jurisdiction, And All In All, The Fool Of The Farce.

A Man Must Not Always Tell All, For That Be Folly; But What A Man Says Should Be What He Thinks.

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.

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

Men Are Most Apt To Believe What They Least Understand.

Libertarian Party

Nothing Prints More Lively In Our Minds Than Something We Wish To Forget.

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.

Anyone Who Does Not Feel Sufficiently Strong In Memory Should Not Meddle With Lying.

From Obedience And Submission Comes All Our Virtues, And All Sin Is Comes From Self-opinion.

Adrian, The Emperor, Exclaimed Incessantly, When Dying, "that The Crowd Of Physicians Had Killed Him."

Time Steals Away Without Any Inconvenience.

And Not To Serve For A Table-talk.

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?

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.

Who Feareth To Suffer Suffereth Already, Because He Feareth.

How Many Things We Held Yesterday As Articles Of Faith Which Today We Tell As Fables.

The Beautiful Souls Are They That Are Universal, Open, And Ready For All Things.

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.

We Judge A Horse Not Only By Its Pace On A Racecourse, But Also By Its Walk, Nay, When Resting In Its Stable.

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

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

Arts And Sciences Are Not Cast In A Mould, But Are Found And Perfected By Degrees, By Often Handling And Polishing.

The Reverse Side Of Truth Has A Hundred Thousand Shapes And No Defined Limits.

A Man Must Learn To Endure Patiently What He Cannot Avoid Conveniently.

The Day Of Your Birth Leads You To Death As Well As To Life.

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.

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.

Like The Watermen Who Advance Forward While They Look Backward.

Let Us Permit Nature To Have Her Way. She Understands Her Business Better Than We Do.

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

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

Live As Long As You Please, You Will Strike Nothing Off The Time You Will Have To Spend Dead.

Wonder Is The Foundation Of All Philosophy, Inquiry The Progress, Ignorance The End.

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.

As Far As I Am Concerned, No Road That Would Lead Us To Health Is Either Arduous Or Expensive.

I Must Use These Great Men's Virtues As A Cloak For My Weakness.

One Open Way Of Speaking Introduces Another Open Way Of Speaking, And Draws Out Discoveries, Like Wine And Love.

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.

An Ancient Father Says That A Dog We Know Is Better Company Than A Man Whose Language We Do Not Understand.

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.

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.

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

Finding Yourself

He Whose Mouth Is Out Of Taste Says The Wine Is Flat.

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.

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.

The Same Reason That Makes Us Chide And Brawl And Fall Out With Any Of Our Neighbors, Causeth A War To Follow Between Princes.

Things Seem Greater By Imagination Than They Are In Effect.

Our Zeal Works Wonders, Whenever It Supports Our Inclination Toward Hatred, Cruelty, Ambition.

Stupidity And Wisdom Meet In The Same Centre Of Sentiment And Resolution, In The Suffering Of Human Accidents.

Marriage Is Like A Cage; One Sees The Birds Outside Desperate To Get In, And Those Inside Equally Desperate To Get Out.

The Laws Of Conscience, Though We Ascribe Them To Nature, Actually Come From Custom.

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.

Indeed, There Is No Such Thing As An Altogether Ugly Woman — Or Altogether Beautiful.

Physicians Have This Advantage: The Sun Lights Their Success And The Earth Covers Their Failures.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Is There A Polity Better Ordered, The Offices Better Distributed, And More Inviolably Observed And Maintained, Than That Of Bees?

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.

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.

Marriage Can Be Compared To A Cage: Birds Outside It Despair To Enter, And Birds Within, To Escape.

There Is A Certain Amount Of Purpose, Acquiescence, And Satisfaction In Nursing One's Melancholy.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

He Who Establishes His Argument By Noise And Command Shows That His Reason Is Weak.

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.

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.

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.

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