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It Was Truly Very Good Reason That We Should Be Beholden To God Only, And To The Favour Of His Grace, For The Truth Of So Noble A Belief, Since From His Sole Bounty We Receive The Fruit Of Immortality, Which Consists In The Enjoyment Of Eternal Beatitude.... The More We Give And Confess To Owe And Render To God, We Do It With The Greater Christianity.

-Michel De Montaigne

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It Was Truly Very

Michel De Montaigne

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It Was Truly Very Good Reason That We Should Be Beholden To God Only, And To The Favour Of His Grace, For The Truth Of So Noble A Belief, Since From His Sole Bounty We Receive The Fruit Of Immortality, Which Consists In The Enjoyment Of Eternal Beatitude.... The More We Give And Confess To Owe And Render To God, We Do It With The Greater Christianity.

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No One But Yourself Knows Whether You Are Cowardly And Cruel, Or Loyal And Devout; Others Do Not See You; They Surmise You By Uncertain Conjectures; They Perceive Not So Much Your Nature As Your Art.

In Plain Truth, Lying Is An Accursed Vice. We Are Not Men, Nor Have Any Other Tie Upon Another, But By Our Word.

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.

To Behave Rightly, We Ourselves Should Never Lay A Hand On Our Servants As Long As Our Anger Lasts. Things Will Seem Different To Us When We Have Quieted And Cooled Down.

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.

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

The Public Weal Requires That Men Should Betray, And Lie, And Massacre.

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

It Is Only Reasonable To Allow The Administration Of Affairs To Mothers Before Their Children Reach The Age Prescribed By Law At Which They Themselves Can Be Responsible. But That Father Would Have Reared Them Ill Who Could Not Hope That In Their Maturity They Would Have More Wisdom And Competence Than His Wife.

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

Behold The Hands, How They Promise, Conjure, Appeal, Menace, Pray, Supplicate, Refuse, Beckon, Interrogate, Admire, Confess, Cringe, Instruct, Command, Mock And What Not Besides, With A Variation And Multiplication Of Variation Which Makes The Tongue Envious.

The Beauty Of Stature Is The Only Beauty Of Men.

What Kind Of Truth Is This Which Is True On One Side Of A Mountain And False On The Other?

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.

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.

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

True Freedom Is To Have Power Over Oneself For Everything.

As Great Enmities Spring From Great Friendships, And Mortal Distempers From Vigorous Health, So Do The Most Surprising And The Wildest Frenzies From The High And Lively Agitations Of Our Souls.

Not Being Able To Govern Events, I Govern Myself.

Law Of Attraction

Every One Is Well Or Ill At Ease, According As He Finds Himself! Not He Whom The World Believes, But He Who Believes Himself To Be So, Is Content; And In Him Alone Belief Gives Itself Being And Reality

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

One Man May Have Some Special Knowledge At First-hand About The Character Of A River Or A Spring, Who Otherwise Knows Only What Everyone Else Knows. Yet To Give Currency To This Shred Of Information, He Will Undertake To Write On The Whole Science Of Physics. From This Fault Many Great Troubles Spring.

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

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 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.

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.

If I Am To Serve As An Instrument Of Deceit, At Least Let It Be With A Clear Conscience. I Do Not Want To Be Considered Either So Affectionate Or So Loyal A Servant As To Be Found Fit To Betray Anyone.

He That First Likened Glory To A Shadow Did Better Than He Was Aware Of. They Are Both Of Them Things Excellently Vain. Glory Also, Like A Shadow, Goes Sometimes Before The Body, And Sometimes In Length Infinitely Exceeds It.

Gentleness And Repose Are Paramount To Everything Else In Woman.

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

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 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.

A Strong Memory Is Commonly Coupled With Infirm Judgment.

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.

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

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

No Wonder, Said An Ancient, That Chance Has So Much Power Over Us, Since It Is By Chance That We Live.

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.

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.

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

We Should Spread Joy, But, As Far As We Can, Repress Sorrow.

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

Lucius Arruntius Killed Himself, He Said, To Escape Both The Future And The Past.

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

God Sends The Cold According To The Coat.

Few Men Have Been Admired Of Their Familiars.

A Hair Shirt Does Not Always Render Those Chaste Who Wear It.

A Volunteer, You Assign Yourself Specific Roles And Risks According To Your Judgement Of Their Brilliance And Importance, And You See When Life Itself May Be Justifiably Devoted To Them.

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

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]

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

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

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.

There Is No Wish More Natural Than The Wish To Know.

Who So Hath His Mind On Taking, Hath It No More On What He Taketh.

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

Oh Senseless Man, Who Cannot Possibly Make A Worm Or A Flea And Yet Will Create Gods By The Dozen!

I Would Rather Produce My Passions Than Brood Over Them At My Expense; They Grow Languid When They Have Vent And Expression. It Is Better That Their Point Should Operate Outwardly Than Be Turned Against Us.

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

Writing Does Not Cause Misery. It Is Born Of Misery.

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

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.

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

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.

Those Who Give The First Shock To A State Are The First Overwhelmed In Its Ruin; The Fruits Of Public Commotion Are Seldom Enjoyed By Him Who Was The First Mover; He Only Beats The Water For Another's Net.

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

Stubborn And Ardent Clinging To One's Opinion Is The Best Proof Of Stupidity.

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.

He That Is A Friend To Himself, Know; He Is A Friend To All.

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

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

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

Who Is It That Does Not Voluntarily Exchange His Health, His Repose, And His Very Life For Reputation And Glory? The Most Useless, Frivolous, And False Coin That Passes Current Among Us.

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

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

Death Pays All Debts.

Ignorance Is The Softest Pillow On Which A Man Can Rest His Head.

Now, Of All The Benefits That Virtue Confers Upon Us, The Contempt Of Death Is One Of The Greatest.

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

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?

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

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

Nature Has With A Motherly Tenderness Observed This, That The Action She Has Enjoyned Us For Our Necessity Should Be Also Pleasant To Us, And Invites Us To Them, Not Only By Reason, But Also By Appetite: And tis Injustice To Infringe Her Laws.

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

No Man Dies Before His Hour. The Time You Leave Behind Was No More Yours, Than That Which Was Before Your Birth, And Concerneth You No More.

It Is In The Enjoyment And Not In Mere Possession That Makes For Happiness.

The Bees Pillage The Flowers Here And There But They Make Honey Of Them Which Is All Their Own; It Is No Longer Thyme Or Marjolaine: So The Pieces Borrowed From Others He Will Transform And Mix Up Into A Work All His Own.

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

The Smallest Annoyances, Disturb Us The Most.

The Height And Value Of True Virtue Consists In The Facility, Utility, And Pleasure Of Its Exercise; So Far From Difficulty, That Boys, As Well As Men, And The Innocent As Well As The Subtle, May Make It Their Own; And It Is By Order And Good Conduct, And Not By Force, That It Is To Be Acquired.

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

Friendship That Possesses The Whole Soul, And There Rules And Sways With An Absolute Sovereignty, Can Admit Of No Rival.

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.

This Very Rome That We Behold Deserves Our Love ...: The Only Common And Universal City.

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.

It Needs Courage To Be Afraid.

We Took Advantage Of [the Indians'] Ignorance And Inexperience To Incline Them The More Easily Toward Treachery, Lewdness, Avarice, And Every Sort Of Inhumanity And Cruelty, After The Example And Pattern Of Our Ways.

Men Are Nothing Until They Are Excited.

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

God Might Grant Us Riches, Honours, Life, And Even Health, To Our Own Hurt; For Every Thing That Is Pleasing To Us Is Not Always Good For Us. If He Sends Us Death, Or An Increase Of Sickness, Instead Of A Cure, Vvrga Tua Et Baculus, Tuus Ipsa Me Consolata Sunt. "thy Rod And Thy Staff Have Comforted Me," He Does It By The Rule Of His Providence, Which Better And More Certainly Discerns What Is Proper For Us Than We Can Do; And We Ought To Take It In Good Part, As Coming From A Wise And Most Friendly Hand.

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.

Travelling Through The World Produces A Marvellous 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.

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

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

The Most Certain Sign Of Wisdom Is A Continual Cheerfulness; Her State Is Like That Of Things In The Regions Above The Moon, Always Clear And Serene.

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

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.

Every Period Of Life Has Its Peculiar Prejudices; Whoever Saw Old Age, That Did Not Applaud The Past, And Condemn The Present Times?

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

I Have Never Seen A Greater Monster Or Miracle In The World Than Myself.

A Man Should Not So Much Respect What He Eats, As With Whom He Eats.

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

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

A Tutor Should Not Be Continually Thundering Instruction Into The Ears Of His Pupil, As If He Were Pouring It Through A Funnel, But, After Having Put The Lad, Like A Young Horse, On A Trot, Before Him, To Observe His Paces, And See What He Is Able To Perform, Should, According To The Extent Of His Capacity, Induce Him To Taste, To Distinguish, And To Find Out Things For Himself; Sometimes Opening The Way, At Other Times Leaving It For Him To Open; And By Abating Or Increasing His Own Pace, Accommodate His Precepts To The Capacity Of His Pupil.

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.

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.

Wise Men Have More To Learn Of Fools Than Fools Of Wise Men.

Every Man Carries The Entire Form Of Human Condition.

Human Condition

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

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

Virtue Shuns Ease As A Companion. It Demands A Rough And Thorny Path.

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.

All The Fame You Should Look For In Life Is To Have Lived It Quietly.

A Well-bred Man Is Always Sociable And Complaisant.

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.

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

Nothing Is So Firmly Believed As What We Least Know.

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

The Oldest And Best Known Evil Was Ever More Supportable Than One That Was New And Untried.

No Spiritual Mind Remains Within Itself; It Is Always Aspiring And Going Beyond Its Own Strength.

Everyone Calls Barbarity What He Is Not Accustomed To.

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.

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

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.

I Seek In The Reading Of Books, Only To Please Myself, By An Honest Diversion.

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.

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.

The Only Good Histories Are Those Written By Those Who Had Command In The Events They Describe.

Whenever A New Discovery Is Reported To The World, They Say First, It Is Probably Not True, Then After, When The Truth Of The New Proposition Has Been Demonstrated Beyond Question, They Say, Yes, It May Be True, But It Is Not Important. Finally, When Sufficient Time Has Elapsed To Fully Evidence Its Importance, They Say, Yes, Surely It Is Important, But It Is No Longer New.

Their [the Skeptics'] Way Of Speaking Is: "i Settle Nothing. . . . I Do Not Understand It. . . . Nothing Seems True That May Not Seem False." Their Sacramental Word Is . . . , Which Is To Say, I Suspend My Judgment.

To Make A Crooked Stick Straight, We Bend It The Contrary Way.

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

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

Of All Our Infirmities, The Most Savage Is To Despise Our Being.

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.

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

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.

Let Us A Little Permit Nature To Take Her Own Way; She Better Understands Her Own Affairs Than We.

The Land Of Marriage Has This Peculiarity: That Strangers Are Desirous Of Inhabiting It, While Its Natural Inhabitants Would Willingly Be Banished From Thence.

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

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

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

Some Men Seem Remarkable To The World In Whom Neither Their Wives Nor Their Valets Saw Anything Extraordinary. Few Men Have Been Admired By Their Servants.

Malice Sucks Up The Greatest Part Of Its Own Venom, And Poisons Itself.

Marriage Has, For Its Share, Usefulness, Justice, Honour, And Constancy; A Stale But More Durable Pleasure. Love Is Grounded On Pleasure Alone, And It Is Indeed More Gratifying To The Senses, Keener And More Acute; A Pleasure Stirred And Kept Alive By Difficulties. There Must Be A Sting And A Smart In It. It Ceases To Be Love If It Has No Shafts And No Fire.

I Moreover Affirm That Our Wisdom Itself, And Wisest Consultations, For The Most Part Commit Themselves To The Conduct Of Chance.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

In The Examples That I Here Bring In Of What I Have [read], Heard, Done Or Said, I Have Refrained From Daring To Alter Even The Smallest And Most Indifferent Circumstances. My Conscience Falsifies Not An Iota; For My Knowledge I Cannot Answer.

All General Judgments Are Loose And Imperfect

A Good Marriage Would Be Between A Blind Wife And A Deaf Husband.

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.

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

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

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

Meditation Is A Rich And Powerful Method Of Study For Anyone Who Knows How To Examine His Mind.

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

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 Never Met A Man Who Thought His Thinking Was Faulty.

Presumption Is Our Natural And Original Malady. The Most Vulnerable And Frail Of All Creatures Is Man, And At The Same Time The Most Arrogant.

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

Socrates Thought And So Do I That The Wisest Theory About The Gods Is No Theory At All.

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

Happiness Involves Working Toward Meaningful Goals.

A Man Must Either Imitate The Vicious Or Hate Them.

We Need To Interpret Interpretations More Than To Interpret Things.

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

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.

Philosophical Discussions Habitually Make Men Happy And Joyful Not Frowning And Sad.

Words Of Wisdom

But The Touch Or Company Of Any Man Whatsoever Stirreth Up Their Heat, Which In Their Solitude Was Hushed And Quiet, And Lay As Cinders Raked Up In Ashes.

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

It Is The Rule Of Rules, And The General Law Of All Laws, That Every Person Should Observe Those Of The Place Where He Is.

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

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.

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

I Had Rather Fashion My Mind Than Furnish It.

If Virtue Cannot Shine Bright, But By The Conflict Of Contrary Appetites, Shall We Then Say That She Cannot Subsist Without The Assistance Of Vice, And That It Is From Her That She Derives Her Reputation And Honor?

Ambition Is Not A Vice Of Little People.

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

We Owe Subjection And Obedience To All Our Kings, Whether Good Or Bad, Alike, For That Has Respect Unto Their Office; But As To Esteem And Affection, These Are Only Due To Their Virtue.

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.

Wise People Are Foolish If They Cannot Adapt To Foolish People.

There Is The Name And The Thing; The Name Is A Sound Which Sets A Mark On And Denotes The Thing. The Name Is No Part Of The Thing Nor Of The Substance; It Is An Extraneous Piece Added To The Thing, And Outside Of It.

It Is A Sign Of Contraction Of The Mind When It Is Content, Or Of Weariness. A Spirited Mind Never Stops Within Itself; It Is Always Aspiring And Going Beyond Its Strength.

It Is A Monstrous Thing That I Will Say, But I Will Say It All The Same: I Find In Many Things More Restraint And Order In My Morals Than In My Opinions, And My Lust Less Depraved Than My Reason.

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