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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.

-Michel De Montaigne

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Fortune Does Us Neither

Michel De Montaigne

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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.

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More From Michel De Montaigne

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.

Why Dost Thou Complain Of This World? It Detains Thee Not; Thy Own Cowardice Is The Cause, If Thou Livest In Pain.

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.

.. 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.

The Strength Of Any Plan Depends On The Time. Circumstances And Things Eternally Shift And Change.

The Archer Who Overshoots His Mark Does No Better Than He Who Falls Short Of It.

All General Judgments Are Loose And Imperfect

Rejoice In The Things That Are Present; All Else Is Beyond Thee.

Live In The Moment

Past Present Future

How Many Condemnations I Have Witnessed More Criminal Than The Crime!

Most Pleasures Embrace Us But To Strangle.

All Permanent Decisions Are Made In A Temporary State Of Mind.

There Is No Virtue Which Does Not Rejoice A Well-descended Nature; There Is A Kind Of I Know Not What Congratulation In Well-doing, That Gives Us An Inward Satisfaction, And A Certain Generous Boldness That Accompanies A Good Conscience.

Congratulations

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

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.

Like The Watermen Who Advance Forward While They Look Backward.

Every Man May Speak Truly, But To Speak Methodically, Prudently, And Fully Is A Talent That Few Men Have.

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.

Since We Cannot Match It Let Us Take Our Revenge By Abusing It.

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?

It Is Much More Easy To Accuse The One Sex Than To Excuse The Other.

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]

Diogenes Was Asked What Wine He Liked Best; And He Answered As I Would Have Done When He Said, "somebody Else's".

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

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.

I Would Like To Suggest That Our Minds Are Swamped By Too Much Study And By Too Much Matter Just As Plants Are Swamped By Too Much Water Or Lamps By Too Much Oil; That Our Minds, Held Fast And Encumbered By So Many Diverse Preoccupations, May Well Lose The Means Of Struggling Free, Remaining Bowed And Bent Under The Load; Except That It Is Quite Otherwise: The More Our Souls Are Filled, The More They Expand; Examples Drawn From Far-off Times Show, On The Contrary, That Great Soldiers Ad Statesmen Were Also Great Scholars.

I Conceive That Pleasures Are To Be Avoided If Greater Pains Be The Consequence, And Pains To Be Coveted That Will Terminate In Greater Pleasures.

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

If I Were A Maker Of Books I Should Compile A Register, With Comments, Of Different Deaths. He Who Should Teach People To Die, Would Teach Them To Live.

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

A Little Folly Is Desirable In Him That Will Not Be Guilty Of Stupidity.

A Strong Imagination Begetteth Opportunity.

[marriage] Happens As With Cages: The Birds Without Despair To Get In, And Those Within Despair Of Getting Out.

The Least Strained And Most Natural Ways Of The Soul Are The Most Beautiful; The Best Occupations Are The Least Forced.

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

We May So Seize On Virtue, That If We Embrace It With An Overgreedy And Violent Desire, It May Become Vicious.

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

We Have So Much Ill Fortune As Inconstancy, Or So Much Bad Purpose As Folly, We Are Not So Full Of Evil As We Are Of Inanity; We Are Not So Wretched As We Are Base

The Daughter-in-law Of Pythagoras Said That A Woman Who Goes To Bed With A Man Ought To Lay Aside Her Modesty With Her Skirt, And Put It On Again With Her Petticoat

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

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.

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

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.

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

The Confidence In Another Man's Virtue Is No Light Evidence Of A Man's Own, And God Willingly Favors Such A Confidence.

There Is No Passion So Contagious As That Of Fear.

The Only Thing Certain Is Nothing Is Certain.

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.

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

The Perpetual Work Of Your Life Is But To Lay The Foundation Of 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.

Age Imprints More Wrinkles In The Mind Than It Does On The Face.

It Is A Rare Life That Remains Orderly Even In Private.

We Cannot Be Held To What Is Beyond Our Strength And Means; For At Times The Accomplishment And Execution May Not Be In Our Power, And Indeed There Is Nothing Really In Our Own Power Except The Will: On This Are Necessarily Based And Founded All The Principles That Regulate The Duty Of Man.

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.

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

We Must Learn To Suffer What We Cannot Evade.

To Speak Less Of Oneself Than What One Really Is, Is Folly, Not Modesty; And To Take That For Current Pay Which Is Under A Man's Value, Is Pusillanimity And Cowardice.

Fie On The Eloquence That Leaves Us Craving Itself, Not Things!

Men Are Nothing Until They Are Excited.

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.

I Am One Of Those Who Hold That Poetry Is Never So Blithe As In A Wanton And Irregular Subject.

Not Because Socrates Said So,... I Look Upon All Men As My Compatriots.

My Art And Profession Is To Live.

Children's Games Are Hardly Games. Children Are Never More Serious Than When They Play.

Friendship Is A Creature Formed For A Companionship Not For A Herd.

The Desire For Riches Is More Sharpened By Their Use Than By Their Need. Pleasing All: A Mark That Can Never Be Aimed At Or Hit.

It Is For Little Souls, That Truckle Under The Weight Of Affairs, Not To Know How Clearly To Disengage Themselves, And Not To Know How To Lay Them Aside And Take Them Up Again.

The Corruption Of The Age Is Made Up By The Particular Contribution Of Every Individual Man; Some Contribute Treachery, Others Injustice, Atheism, Tyranny, Avarice, Cruelty, According To Their Power.

A Man May Be Humble Through Vainglory.

Socrates And Then Archesilaus Used To Make Their Pupils Speak First; They Spoke Afterwards. 'obest Plerumque Iss Discere Volunt Authoritas Eorum Qui Docent.' [for Those Who Want To Learn, The Obstacle Can Often Be The Authority Of Those Who Teach]

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.

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

I Write To Keep From Going Mad From The Contradictions I Find Among Mankind - And To Work Some Of Those Contradictions Out For Myself.

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.

For There Is No Air That Men So Greedily Draw In, That Diffuses Itself So Soon, And That Penetrates So Deep As That Of License.

Every Man Has Within Himself The Entire Human Condition

Human Condition

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

He Who Lives Not To Others, Lives Little To Himself.

It Is Commonly Seene By Experience, That Excellent Memories Do Rather Accompany Weake Judgements.

Who Feareth To Suffer Suffereth Already, Because He Feareth.

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

Amongst All Other Vices There Is None I Hate More Than Cruelty, Both By Nature And Judgment, As The Extremest Of All Vices.

Truth And Reason Are Common To Everyone, And Are No More His Who Spake Them First Than His Who Speaks Them After.

My Trade And My Art Is Living. He Who Forbids Me To Speak About It According To My Sense, Experience, And Practice, Let Him Orderthe Architect To Speak Of Buildings Not According To Himself But According To His Neighbor; According To Another Man's Knowledge, Not According To His Own.

It Is Very Easy To Accuse A Government Of Imperfection, For All Mortal Things Are Full Of It.

I Speak The Truth, Not My Fill Of It, But As Much As I Dare Speak; And I Dare To Do So A Little More As I Grow Old.

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.

Why Did I Love Her? Because It Was Her; Because It Was Me.

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

There Is Perhaps No More Obvious Vanity Than To Write Of It So Vainly.

My Trade And Art Is To Live.

Learning Is Not To Be Tacked To The Mind, But We Must Fuse And Blend Them Together, Not Merely Giving The Mind A Slight Tincture, But A Thorough And Perfect Dye. And If We Perceive No Evident Change And Improvement, It Would Be Better To Leave It Alone; Learning Is A Dangerous Weapon, And Apt To Wound Its Master If It Be Wielded By A Feeble Hand, And By One Not Well Acquainted With Its Use.

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

Is It Reasonable That Even The Arts Should Take Advantage Of And Profit By Our Natural Stupidity And Feebleness Of Mind?

Words Repeated Again Have As Another Sound, So Another Sense.

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

Intelligence Is Required To Be Able To Know That A Man Knows Not.

A Man Must Keep A Little Back Shop Where He Can Be Himself Without Reserve. In Solitude Alone Can He Know True Freedom.

The Laws Keep Up Their Credit, Not By Being Just, But Because They Are Laws; 'tis The Mystic Foundation Of Their Authority; They Have No Other, And It Well Answers Their Purpose. They Are Often Made By Fools; Still Oftener By Men Who, Out Of Hatred To Equality, Fail In Equity; But Always By Men, Vain And Irresolute Authors.

The Whole Idea We Have For Their Chastity Is Ridiculous. They Would Have To Become Numb And Invisible To Please Us. I Don't Know Whether The Exploits Of Alexander And Caesar Really Surpass The Resolution Of A Beautiful Young Woman, Bred Up In The Light And Commerce Of Our Society, Who Still Keeps Herself Whole. There Is No Doing So Hard As Not Doing.

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

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

I See This Evident, That We Willingly Accord To Piety Only The Services That Flatter Our Passions.

I Determine Nothing; I Do Not Comprehend Things; I Suspend Judgment; I Examine.

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

Law Of Attraction

There Is A Sort Of Gratification In Doing Good Which Makes Us Rejoice In Ourselves.

Let Every Foot Have Its Own Shoe.

Shame On All Eloquence Which Leaves Us With A Taste For Itself And Not For Its Substance.

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.

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

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

No Wind Serves Him Who Addresses His Voyage To No Certain Port.

Not Being Able To Govern Events, I Govern Myself.

Law Of Attraction

Poetry Reproduces An Indefinable Mood That Is More Amorous Than Love Itself. Venus Is Not So Beautiful All Naked, Alive, And Panting, As She Is Here In Virgil.

Once Conform, Once Do What Others Do Because They Do It, And A Kind Of Lethargy Steals Over All The Finer Senses Of The Soul.

And To Bring In A New Word By The Head And Shoulders, They Leave Out The Old One.

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.

Man Is Forming Thousands Of Ridiculous Relations Between Himself And God.

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.

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.

Dreams Are Faithful Interpreters Of Our Inclinations; But There Is Art Required To Sort And Understand Them.

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.

The Most Unhappy And Frail Creatures Are Men And Yet They Are The Proudest.

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

As Far As Fidelity Is Concerned, There Is No Animal In The World As Treacherous As Man.

It Is A Thorny Undertaking, And More So Than It Seems, To Follow A Movement So Wandering As That Of Our Mind, To Penetrate The Opaque Depths Of Its Innermost Folds, To Pick Out And Immobilize The Innumerable Flutterings That Agitate It.

The Soul That Has No Established Aim Loses Itself

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

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.

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 Most Fruitful And Natural Exercise For Our Minds Is, In My Opinion, Conversation.

The Relish Of Good And Evil Depends In A Great Measure Upon The Opinion We Have Of Them.

Cognitive Therapy

Men Throw Themselves On Foreign Assistances To Spare Their Own, Which, After All, Are The Only Certain And Sufficient Ones.

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.

A Man Must Either Imitate The Vicious Or Hate Them.

Whom Conscience, Ne'er Asleep, Wounds With Incessant Strokes, Not Loud, But Deep.

Every Man Bears The Whole Stamp Of The Human Condition.

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

Experience Stands On Its Own Dunghill In Medicine, And Reason Yields It Place. Medicine Has Always Professed Experience To Be The Touchstone Of Its Operations.

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.

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.

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

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.

If Health And A Fair Day Smile Upon Me, I Am A Very Good Fellow; If A Corn Trouble My Toe, I Am Sullen, Out Of Humor, And Inaccessible.

There Is Nothing Useless In Nature; Not Even Uselessness Itself

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

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

There Is No So Wretched And Coarse A Soul Wherein Some Particular Faculty Is Not Seen To Shine.

Wine Is The Benevolent God, Who Gives Back Gaiety To Men And Restores Youth To The Old.

Those Who Have Compared Our Life To A Dream Were Right... We Were Sleeping Wake, And Waking Sleep.

If You Want It To Be So, History Can Be A Waste Of Time; It Can Also Be, If You Want It To Be So, A Study Bearing Fruit Beyond Price.

Words Of Wisdom

Whatever Is Enforced By Command Is More Imputed To Him Who Exacts Than To Him Who Performs.

The Plague Of Man Is Boasting Of His Knowledge.

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.

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.

No Pleasure Has Any Savor For Me Without Communication.

Without Communication

Let Us Not Be Ashamed To Speak What We Shame Not To Think.

Time Steals Away Without Any Inconvenience.

The Laws Of Conscience, Which We Pretend To Be Derived From Nature, Proceed From Custom.

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

To Know Much Is Often The Cause Of Doubting More.

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

It Should Be Noted That Children At Play Are Not Playing About; Their Games Should Be Seen As Their Most Serious-minded Activity.

The World Is But A School Of Inquisition; It Is Not Who Shall Enter The Ring, But Who Shall Run The Best Courses.

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

It Is Not My Deeds That I Write Down, It Is Myself, My Essence.

Everyone Gives The Title Of Barbarism To Everything That Is Not In Use In His Own Country.

To Distract Myself From Tiresome Thoughts, I Have Only To Resort To Books; They Easily Draw My Mind To Themselves And Away From Other Things.

Others Form Man; I Tell Of Him, And Portray A Particular One, Very Ill-formed, Whom I Should Really Make Very Different From Whathe Is If I Had To Fashion Him Over Again. But Now It Is Done.

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.

There Is No Course Of Life So Weak And Sottish As That Which Is Managed By Order, Method, And Discipline.

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

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.

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

He Who Does Not Live In Some Degree For Others, Hardly Lives For Himself.

What A Man Hates, He Takes Seriously.

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

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

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

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.

Cowardice Is The Mother Of Cruelty.

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

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

Friendship Is The Highest Degree Of Perfection In Society.

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

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

We Easily Enough Confess In Others An Advantage Of Courage, Strength, Experience, Activity, And Beauty; But An Advantage In Judgment We Yield To None.

The Way Of The World Is To Make Laws, But Follow Custom.

Make Your Educational Laws Strict And Your Criminal Ones Can Be Gentle; But If You Leave Youth Its Liberty You Will Have To Dig Dungeons For Ages.

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.

He Who Is Not Sure Of His Memory, Should Not Undertake The Trade Of Lying.

Give Me The Provisions And Whole Apparatus Of A Kitchen, And I Would Starve.

We Are More Solicitous That Men Speak Of Us, Than How They Speak.

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.

We Must Reserve A Back Shop All Our Own Entirely Free, In Which To Establish Our Real Liberty And Our Principal Retreat And Solitude.

All The Opinions In The World Point Out That Pleasure Is Our Aim.

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

We Have No Participation In Being, Because All Human Nature Is Ever Midway Between Being Born And Dying, Giving Off Only A Vague Image And Shadow Of Itself, And A Weak And Uncertain Opinion. And If You Chance To Fix Your Thoughts On Trying To Grasp Its Essence, It Would Be Neither More Nor Less Than If Your Tried To Clutch Water.

Scratching Is One Of Nature's Sweetest Gratifications, And Nearest At Hand.

I Find No Quality So Easy For A Man To Counterfeit As Devotion, Though His Life And Manner Are Not Conformable To It; The Essence Of It Is Abstruse And Occult, But The Appearances Easy And Showy.

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