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It Is A Dangerous And Fateful Presumption, Besides The Absurd Temerity That It Implies, To Disdain What We Do Not Comprehend. For After You Have Established, According To Your Fine Undertstanding, The Limits Of Truth And Falsehood, And It Turns Out That You Must Necessarily Believe Things Even Stranger Than Those You Deny, You Are Obliged From Then On To Abandon These Limits.

-Michel De Montaigne

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It Is A Dangerous

Michel De Montaigne

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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.

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Tis So Much To Be A King, That He Only Is So By Being So.

The Memory Represents To Us Not What We Choose But What It Pleases.

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.

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

In True Education, Anything That Comes To Our Hand Is As Good As A Book: The Prank Of A Page- Boy, The Blunder Of A Servant, A Bit Of Table Talk - They Are All Part Of The Curriculum.

We Must Learn To Endure What We Cannot Avoid. Our Life Is Composed, Like The Harmony Of The World, Of Contrary Things, Also Of Different Tones, Sweet And Harsh, Sharp And Flat, Soft And Loud. If A Musician Liked Only One Kind, What Would He Have To Say?

When I Am Attached By Gloomy Thoughts, Nothing Helps Me So Much As Running To My Books. They Quickly Absorb Me And Banish The Clouds From My Mind.

Every Abridgement Of A Good Book Is A Fool Abridged.

Lend Yourself To Others, But Give Yourself To Yourself.

I Find That The Best Virtue I Have Has In It Some Tincture Of Vice.

In My Opinion, Every Rich Man Is A Miser.

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

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.

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

Every Movement Reveals Us.

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.

All General Judgments Are Loose And Imperfect

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

There Are Few Men Who Dare To Publish To The World The Prayers They Make To Almighty God.

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

Whatever The Benefits Of Fortune Are , They Yet Require A Palate Fit To Relish And Taste Them; 'tis Fruition, And Not Possession, That Renders Us Happy.

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.

What Fear Has Once Made Me Will, I Am Bound Still To Will When Without Fear.

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

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

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.

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

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.

It Is In Vain That We Get Upon Stilts, For Once On Them, It Is Still With Our Legs That We Must Walk. And On The Highest Throne In The World We Are Still Sitting On Our Own Ass.

If To Take Up Books Were To Take Them In, And If To See Them Were To Consider Them, And To Run Through Them Were To Grasp Them, I Should Be Wrong To Make Myself Out Quite As Ignorant As I Say I Am.

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.

If Others Examined Themselves Attentively, As I Do, They Would Find Themselves, As I Do, Full Of Inanity And Nonsense. Get Rid Of It I Cannot Without Getting Rid Of Myself.

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.

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.

But Sure There Is Need Of Other Remedies Than Dreaming, A Weak Contention Of Art Against Nature.

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.

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

The Sage Says That All That Is Under Heaven Incurs The Same Law And The Same Fate.

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.

There Is Not Much Less Vexation In The Government Of A Private Family Than In The Managing Of An Entire State.

Ambition Is, Of All Other, The Most Contrary Humor To Solitude; And Glory And Repose Are So Inconsistent That They Cannot Possibly Inhabit One And The Same Place; And For So Much As I Understand, Those Have Only Their Arms And Legs Disengaged From The Crowd, Their Mind And Intention Remain Engaged Behind More Than Ever.

Long Life, And Short, Are By Death Made All One; For There Is No Long, Nor Short, To Things That Are No More.

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.

It Takes Strong Ears Indeed To Hear Ourselves Judged Frankly, And Because There Are Few Who Can Endure Criticism Without Being Stung By It, Those Who Venture To Criticize Us Perform A Remarkable Act Of Friendship. For It Is A Healthy Love That Will Risk Wounding Or Offending In Order To Profer A Benefit.

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.

The Honor We Receive From Those That Fear Us, Is Not Honor; Those Respects Are Paid To Royalty And Not To Me.

Only He Can Judge Of Matters Great And High Whose Soul Is Likewise.

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

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

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

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.

The Worth Of The Mind Consisteth Not In Going High, But In Marching Orderly.

We Find Our Energies Are Actually Cramped When We Are Overanxious To Succeed.

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

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.

God Defend Me From Myself.

If Atoms Do, By Chance, Happen To Combine Themselves Into So Many Shapes, Why Have They Never Combined Together To Form A House Or A Slipper? By The Same Token, Why Do We Not Believe That If Innumerable Letters Of The Greek Alphabet Were Poured All Over The Market-place They Would Eventually Happen To Form The Text Of The Iliad?

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

I Admire The Assurance And Confidence Everyone Has In Himself, Whereas There Is Hardly Anything I Am Sure I Know Or That I Dare Give My Word I Can Do.

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

Speaking Is Half His That Speaks, And Half His That Hears.

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

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

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.

There Is Little Less Trouble In Governing A Private Family Than A Whole Kingdom.

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

Fame And Tranquility Can Never Be Bedfellows.

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

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.

There Is No Knowledge So Hard To Acquire As The Knowledge Of How To Live This Life Well And Naturally.

We Have More Poets Than Judges And Interpreters Of Poetry. It Is Easier To Write An Indifferent Poem Than To Understand A Good One. There Is, Indeed, A Certain Low And Moderate Sort Of Poetry, That A Man May Well Enough Judge By Certain Rules Of Art; But The True, Supreme, And Divine Poesy Is Equally Above All Rules And Reason. And Whoever Discerns The Beauty Of It With The Most Assured And Most Steady Sight Sees No More Than The Quick Reflection Of A Flash Of Lightning.

Oh, What A Valiant Faculty Is Hope.

Custom Is A Violent And Treacherous School Mistress. She, By Little And Lithe, Slyly And Unperceived, Slips In The Foot Of Her Authority; But Having By This Gentle And Humble Beginning, With The Benefit Of Time, Fixed And Established It, She Then Unmasks A Furious And Tyrannic Countenance, Against Which We Have No More The Courage Or The Power So Much As To Lift Up Our Eyes.

The Thing I Fear Most Is Fear.

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.

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.

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

Tortures Are A Dangerous Invention, And Seem To Be A Test Of Endurance Rather Than Of Truth.

Our Speech Has Its Weaknesses And Its Defects, Like All The Rest. Most Of The Occasions For The Troubles Of The World Are Grammatical.

When We Have Got It, We Want Something Else.

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

What Kind Of Truth Is It Which Has These Mountains As Its Boundary And Is A Lie Beyond Them?

We Are All Of Us Richer Than We Think We Are.

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.

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.

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.

Every Man Carries The Entire Form Of Human Condition.

Human Condition

We Do Not Correct The Man We Hang; We Correct Others By Him.

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.

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.

My Opinion Is That We Must Lend Ourselves To Others And Give Ourselves Only To Ourselves. If My Will Happened To Be Prone To Mortgage And Attach Itself, I Would Not Last: I Am Too Tender, Both By Nature And By Practice.

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.

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.

I Was Not Long Since In A Company Where I Was Not Who Of My Fraternity Brought News Of A Kind Of Pills, By True Account, Composed Of A Hundred And Odd Several Ingredients; Whereat We Laughed Very Heartily, And Made Ourselves Good Sport; For What Rock So Hard Were Able To Resist The Shock Or Withstand The Force Of So Thick And Numerous A Battery?

Virtue Rejects Facility To Be Her Companion. She Requires A Craggy, Rough And Thorny Way.

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

All The World Knows Me In My Book, And My Book In Me.

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

It Is A Disaster That Wisdom Forbids You To Be Satisfied With Yourself And Always Sends You Away Dissatisfied And Fearful, Whereas Stubbornness And Foolhardiness Fill Their Hosts With Joy And Assurance.

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

I Know That The Arms Of Friendship Are Long Enough To Reach From The One End Of The World To The Other

Death Pays All Debts.

Life In Itself Is Neither Good Nor Evil, It Is The Place Of Good And Evil, According To What You Make It.

Law Of Attraction

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.

For All Parts Of The Body That We See Fit To Expose To The Wind And Air Are Found Fit To Endure It: Face, Feet, Hands, Legs, Shoulders, Head, According As Custom Invites Us. For If There Is A Part Of Us That Is Tender And That Seems As Though It Should Fear The Cold, It Should Be The Stomach, Where Digestion Takes Place; Our Fathers Left It Uncovered, And Our Ladies, Soft And Delicate As They Are, Sometimes Go Half Bare Down To The Navel.

There Is No Pleasure To Me Without Communication: There Is Not So Much As A Sprightly Thought Comes Into My Mind That It Does Not Grieve Me To Have Produced Alone, And That I Have No One To Tell It To.

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

It Is An Absolute Perfection And Virtually Divine To Know How To Enjoy Our Being Rightfully.

The Curiosity Of Knowing Things Has Been Given To Man For A Scourge.

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.

Opinion Is A Powerful Party, Bold, And Without Measure.

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

Even In The Midst Of Compassion We Feel Within I Know Not What Tart Sweet Titillation Of Malicious Pleasure In Seeing Others Suffer; Children Have The Same Feeling.

A Man Must Become Wise At His Own Expense.

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

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

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

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

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.

Man Is Quite Insane. He Wouldn?t Know How To Create A Maggot, And He Creates Gods By The Dozen.

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

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

Eloquence Is An Engine Invented To Manage And Wield At Will The Fierce Democracy, And, Like Medicine To The Sick, Is Only Employed In The Paroxysms Of A Disordered State.

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.

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

No Man Divulges His Revenue, Or At Least Which Way It Comes In: But Every One Publishes His Acquisitions.

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.

A Strong Memory Is Commonly Coupled With Infirm Judgment.

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

Finding Yourself

To Understand Via The Heart Is Not To Understand.

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

He Who Would Teach Men To Die Would Teach Them To Live.

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.

The Secret Counsels Of Princes Are A Troublesome Burden To Such As Have Only To Execute Them.

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.

A Man Should Ever, As Much As In Him Lieth, Be Ready Booted To Take His Journey, And Above All Things Look He Have Then Nothing To Do But With Himself.

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

I Put Forward Formless And Unresolved Notions, As Do Those Who Publish Doubtful Questions To Debate In The Schools, Not To Establish The Truth But To Seek It.

Ceremony Forbids Us To Express By Words Things That Are Lawful And Natural, And We Obey It; Reason Forbids Us To Do Things Unlawful And Ill, And Nobody Obeys It.

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

I Do Not Teach. I Relate.

As For Our Pupils Talk, Let His Virtue And His Sense Of Right And Wrong Shine Through It And Have No Guide But Reason. Make Him Understand That Confessing An Error Which He Discovers In His Own Argument Even When He Alone Has Noticed It Is An Act Of Justice And Integrity, Which Are The Main Qualities He Pursues; Stubbornness And Rancour Are Vulgar Qualities, Visible In Common Souls Whereas To Think Again, To Change One's Mind And To Give Up A Bad Case On The Heat Of The Argument Are Rare Qualities Showing Strength And Wisdom.

I Prefer The Company Of Peasants Because They Have Not Been Educated Sufficiently To Reason Incorrectly.

A Man Never Speaks Of Himself Without Losing Something. What He Says In His Disfavor Is Always Beleived, But When He Commends Himself, He Arouses Mistrust.

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.

Thus We Should Beware Of Clinging To Vulgar Opinions, And Judge Things By Reason's Way, Not By Popular Say.

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

I Have A Vocabulary All My Own. I "pass The Time" When It Is Wet And Disagreeable. When It Is Fine I Do Not Wish To Pass It; I Ruminate It And Hold On To It. We Should Hasten Over The Bad, And Settle Upon The Good.

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.

What A Man Hates, He Takes Seriously.

There Are Truths On This Side Of The Pyrenees Which Are Falsehoods On The Other

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

I Go Out Of My Way, But Rather By License Than Carelessness.... It Is The Inattentive Reader Who Loses My Subject, Not I. Some Word About It Will Always Be Found Off In A Corner, Which Will Not Fail To Be Sufficient, Though It Takes Little Room.

I Turn My Gaze Inward. I Fix It There And Keep It Busy. I Look Inside Myself. I Continually Observe Myself.

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.

Not Being Able To Govern Events, I Govern Myself.

Law Of Attraction

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

A Learned Man Is Not Learned In All Things; But A Sufficient Man Is Sufficient Throughout, Even To Ignorance Itself.

Man Is The Sole Animal Whose Nudities Offend His Own Companions, And The Only One Who, In His Natural Actions, Withdraws And Hides Himself From His Own Kind.

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

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.

Laws Gain Their Authority From Actual Possession And Custom: It Is Perilous To Go Back To Their Origins; Laws, Like Our Rivers, Get Greater And Nobler As They Roll Along: Follow Them Back Upstream To Their Sources And All You Find Is A Tiny Spring, Hardly Recognizable; As Time Goes By It Swells With Pride And Grows In Strength.

We Should Be Similarly Wary Of Accepting Common Opinions; We Should Judge Them By The Ways Of Reason Not By Popular Vote.

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

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

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

Meditation Is A Powerful And Full Study As Can Effectually Taste And Employ Themselves.

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

The Premeditation Of Death Is The Premeditation Of Liberty; He Who Has Learnt To Die Has Forgot To Serve.

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.

Peoples Nurtured On Freedom And Self-government Judge Any Other Form Of Polity To Be Deformed And Unnatural. Those Who Are Used To Monarchy Do The Same .

The Recognition Of Virtue Is Not Less Valuable From The Lips Of The Man Who Hates It, Since Truth Forces Him To Acknowledge It; And Though He May Be Unwilling To Take It Into His Inmost Soul, He At Least Decks Himself Out In Its Trappings.

It Is Not Necessity But Abundance Which Produces Greed.

Laws Are Often Made By Fools, And Even More Often By Men Who Fail In Equity Because They Hate Equality: But Always By Men, Vain Authorities Who Can Resolve Nothing.

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]

We Are More Unhappy To See People Ahead Of Us Than Happy To See People Behind Us.

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

Obstinacy And Dogmatism Are The Surest Signs Of Stupidity. Is There Anything More Confident, Resolute, Disdainful, Grave And Serious Than An Ass?

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.

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

True Freedom Is To Have Power Over Oneself For Everything.

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.

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.

A Wellborn Mind That Is Practiced In Dealing With People Makes Itself Thoroughly Agreeable By Itself. Art Is Nothing Else But Thelist And Record Of The Productions Of Such Minds.

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

Repentance Is No Other Than A Recanting Of The Will, And Opposition To Our Fancies, Which Lead Us Which Way They Please.

If A Man Should Importune Me To Give A Reason Why I Loved Him, I Find It Could No Otherwise Be Expressed, Than By Making Answer: Because It Was He, Because It Was I.

Other Passions Have Objects To Flatter Them, And Seem To Content And Satisfy Them For A While; There Is Power In Ambition, Pleasure In Luxury, And Pelf In Covetousness; But Envy Can Gain Nothing But Vexation.

Truly It Is Reasonable To Make A Great Distinction Between The Faults That Come From Our Weakness And Those That Come From Our Wickedness.

The Births Of All Things Are Weak And Tender And Therefore We Should Have Our Eyes Intent On Beginnings.

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.

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.

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

When All Is Summed Up, A Man Never Speaks Of Himself Without Loss; His Accusations Of Himself Are Always Believed; His Praises Never.

Lost Friendship

I Do Not Portray The Thing In Itself. I Portray The Passage; Not A Passing From One Age To Another, Or, As The People Put It, From Seven Years To Seven Years, But From Day To Day, From Minute To Minute.

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

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.

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