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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.

-Michel De Montaigne

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Learning Is Not To

Michel De Montaigne

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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.

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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 Most Certain Sign Of Wisdom Is Cheerfulness.

Women Are Not Altogether In The Wrong When They Refuse The Rules Of Life Prescribed To The World, For Men Only Have Established Them And Without Their Consent.

We Endeavor More That Men Should Speak Of Us, Than How And What They Speak, And It Sufficeth Us That Our Name Run In Men's Mouths, In What Manner Soever. It Stemma That To Be Known Is In Some Sort To Have Life And Continuance In Other Men's Keeping.

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.

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

Don't Be Afraid To Say What You Are Not Afraid To Think

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

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.

Death Pays All Debts.

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

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

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.

I Neither Complain Of The Past, Nor Do I Fear The Future.

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.

Might I Have Had My Own Will, I Would Not Have Married Wisdom Herself, If She Would Have Had Me.

How Many Valiant Men We Have Seen To Survive Their Own Reputation!

Natural Inclinations Are Assisted And Reinforced By Education, But They Are Hardly Ever Altered Or Overcome.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Off I Go, Rummaging About In Books For Sayings Which Please Me.

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.

We Find Ourselves More Taken With The Running Up And Down, The Games, And Puerile Simplicities Of Our Children, Than We Do, Afterward, With Their Most Complete Actions; As If We Had Loved Them For Our Sport, Like Monkeys, And Not As Men.

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

Speech Belongs Half To The Speaker, Half To The Listener. The Latter Must Prepare To Receive It According To The Motion It Takes.

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

Honesty Is A Question Of Right And Wrong, Not A Matter Of Policy

There Is No Passion So Much Transports The Sincerity Of Judgment As Doth Anger

I Am Disgusted With Innovation, In Whatever Guise, And With Reason, For I Have Seen Very Harmful Effects Of It.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

We Have The Pleasures Suitable To Our Lot; Let Us Not Usurp Those Of Greatness. Ours Are More Natural And All The More Solid And Sure For Being Humbler. Since We Will Not Do So Out Of Conscience, At Least Out Of Ambition Let Us Reject Ambition.

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

Things Seem Greater By Imagination Than They Are In Effect.

Just As In Habiliments It Is A Sign Of Weakness To Wish To Make Oneself Noticeable By Some Peculiar And Unaccustomed Fashion, So, In Language, The Quest For New-fangled Phrases And Little-known Words Comes From A Puerile And Pedantic Ambition.

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.

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

To Call Out For The Hand Of The Enemy Is A Rather Extreme Measure, Yet A Better One, I Think, Than To Remain In Continual Fever Over An Accident That Has No Remedy. But Since All The Precautions That A Man Can Take Are Full Of Uneasiness And Uncertainty, It Is Better To Prepare With Fine Assurance For The Worst That Can Happen, And Derive Some Consolation From The Fact That We Are Not Sure That It Will Happen.

A Father Is Very Miserable Who Has No Other Hold On His Children's Affection Than The Need They Have Of His Assistance, If That Can Be Called Affection.

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.

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

There Is Nothing Useless In Nature; Not Even Uselessness Itself

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

The Conduct Of Our Lives Is The True Mirror Of Our Doctrine.

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

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.

Oh, A Friend! How True Is That Old Saying, That The Enjoyment Of One Is Sweeter And More Necessary Than That Of The Elements Of Water And Fire!

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

Traveling Through The World Produces A Marvelous Clarity In The Judgment Of Men. We Are All Of Us Confined And Enclosed Within Ourselves, And See No Farther Than The End Of Our Nose. This Great World Is A Mirror Where We Must See Ourselves In Order To Know Ourselves. There Are So Many Different Tempers, So Many Different Points Of View, Judgments, Opinions, Laws And Customs To Teach Us To Judge Wisely On Our Own, And To Teach Our Judgment To Recognize Its Imperfection And Natural Weakness.

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

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.

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

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.

If My Mind Could Gain A Firm Footing, I Would Not Make Essays, I Would Make Decisions; But It Is Always In Apprenticeship And On Trial.

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.

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.

The Share We Have In The Knowledge Of Truth, Such As It Is, Has Not Been Acquired By Our Own Powers. God Has Taught Ushis Wonderful Secrets; Our Faith Is Not Of Our Acquiring, It Is Purely The Gift Of Another's Bounty.

Fortune, Seeing That She Could Not Make Fools Wise, Has Made Them Lucky.

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

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

There Are Few Things On Which We Can Pass A Sincere Judgement, Because There Are Few Things In Which We Have Not, In One Way Or Another, A Particular Interest.

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

Why Do People Respect The Package Rather Than The Man?

Habit Is Second Nature.

Have You Known How To Take Rest? You Have Done More Than He Who Hath Taken Empires And Cities.

Nothing Else But An Insatiate Thirst Of Enjoying A Greedily Desired Object.

There Is Power In Ambition, Pleasure In Luxury...but Envy Can Gain Nothing But Vexation.

Lend Yourself To Others, But Give Yourself To Yourself.

Vexations May Be Petty, But They Are Vexations Still.

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

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.

Water, Earth, Air, Fire, And The Other Parts Of This Structure Of Mine Are No More Instruments Of Your Life Than Instruments Of Your Death. Why Do You Fear Your Last Day? It Contributes No More To Your Death Than Each Of The Others. The Last Step Does Not Cause The Fatigue, But Reveals It. All Days Travel Toward Death, The Last One Reaches It.

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

There Is Nothing Of Evil In Life For Him Who Rightly Comprehends That Death Is No Evil; To Know How To Die Delivers Us From All Subjection And Constraint.

A Lady Could Not Boast Of Her Chastity Who Was Never Tempted.

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 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.

'tis The Sharpness Of Our Mind That Gives The Edge To Our Pains And Pleasures.

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

This Idea Is More Surely Understood By Interrogation; What Do I Know? Which I Bear As My Motto With The Emblem Of A Pair Of Scales.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Judgement Holds In Me A Magisterial Seat, At Least It Carefully Tries To. It Lets My Feelings Go Their Way, Both Hatred And Friendship, Even The Friendship I Bear Myself, Without Being Changed And Corrupted By Them.

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.

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

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.

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]

We Have Power Over Nothing Except Our Will.

Repentance Is But A Denying Of Our Will, And An Opposition Of Our Fantasies.

We Are All Patchwork, And So Shapeless And Diverse In Composition That Each Bit, Each Moment, Plays Its Own Game.

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.

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

I Have Seen People Rude By Being Over-polite.

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

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

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.

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.

The Easy, Gentle, And Sloping Path . . . Is Not The Path Of True Virtue. It Demands A Rough And Thorny Road.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I Give My Opinion Not As Being Good, But As Being My Own.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Such As Are In Immediate Fear Of A Losing Their Estates, Of Banishment, Or Of Slavery, Live In Perpetual Anguish, And Lose All Appetite And Repose; Whereas Such As Are Actually Poor, Slaves, Or Exiles, Ofttimes Live As Merrily As Other Folk.

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

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

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

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.

Man Is Certainly Crazy. He Could Not Make A Mite, And He Makes Gods By The Dozen.

The Value Of Life Lies Not In The Length Of Days, But In The Use We Make Of Them... Whether You Find Satisfaction In Life Depends Not On Your Tale Of Years, But On Your Will.

Satisfaction In Life

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

The Thing In The World I Am Most Afraid Of Is Fear.

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.

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.

He Was Doubtless An Understanding Fellow That Said, There Was No Happy Marriage But Betwixt A Blind Wife And A Deaf Husband.

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

One Should Always Have One's Boots On And Be Ready To Leave.

It Is A Stupid Presumption To Go About Despising And Condemning As False Anything That Seems To Us Improbable; This Is A Common Fault In Those Who Think They Have More Intelligence Than The Crowd.

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

An Honest Man Is Not Accountable For The Vice And Folly Of His Trade, And Therefore Ought Not To Refuse The Exercise Of It. It Is The Custom Of His Country, And There Is Profit In It. We Must Live By The World, And Such As We Find It, So Make Use Of 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.

Now, Since Everything Else Is Furnished With The Exact Amount Of Needle And Thread Required To Maintain Its Being, It Is In Truth Incredible That We Alone Should Be Brought Into The World In A Defective And Indigent State, In A State Such That We Cannot Maintain Ourselves Without External Aid.

A Well-bred Man Is Always Sociable And Complaisant.

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.

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

My Library Is My Kingdom, And Here I Try To Make My Rule Absolute-shutting Off This Single Nook From Wife, Daughter And Society. Elsewhere I Have Only A Verbal Authority, And Vague. Unhappy Is The Man, In My Opinion, Who Has No Spot At Home Where He Can Be At Home To Himself-to Court Himself And Hide Away.

I Consider Myself An Average Man, Except In The Fact That I Consider Myself An Average Man.

There Are Some Defeats More Triumphant Than Victories.

Let Every Foot Have Its Own Shoe.

The Only Good Histories Are Those That Have Been Written By The Persons Themselves Who Commanded In The Affairs Whereof They Write.

Glory Consists Of Two Parts: The One In Setting Too Great A Value Upon Ourselves, And The Other In Setting Too Little A Value Upon Others.

~the Value Of Life Lies Not In The Length Of Days, But In The Use We Make Of Them ~

Satisfaction In Life

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

Sometimes It Is A Good Choice Not To Choose At All.

Old Age Is A Lease Nature Only Signs As A Particular Favor, And It May Be, To One, Only In The Space Of Two Or Three Ages; And Then With A Pass To Boot, To Carry Him Through, All The Traverses And Difficulties She Has Strewed In The Way Of His Long Career.

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.

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.

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.

We Are Born To Inquire After Truth; It Belongs To A Greater Power To Possess It. It Is Not, As Democritus Said, Hid In The Bottom Of The Deeps, But Rather Elevated To An Infinite Height In The Divine Knowledge.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Intoxication Is Calculated To Put Heart Into The Elderly And Give Them Delight In Dancing.

Socrates ... Brought Human Wisdom Back Down From Heaven, Where She Was Wasting Her Time, And Restored Her To Man.... It Is Impossible To Go Back Further And Lower. He Did A Great Favor To Human Nature By Showing How Much It Can Do By Itself.

Whether The Events In Our Life Are Good Or Bad, Greatly Depends On The Way We Perceive Them.

Law Of Attraction

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?

Oh, What A Valiant Faculty Is Hope.

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

The Good Opinion Of The Vulgar Is Injurious.

Pythagoras Used To Say That Life Resembles The Olympic Games: A Few People Strain Their Muscles To Carry Off A Prize; Others Bring Trinkets To Sell To The Crowd For Gain; And Some There Are, And Not The Worst, Who Seek No Other Profit Than To Look At The Show And See How And Why Everything Is Done; Spectators Of The Life Of Other People In Order To Judge And Regulate Their Own.

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

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.

It Is Not Without Good Reason, That He Who Has Not A Good Memory Should Never Take Upon Him The Trade Of Lying.

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

We Need To Interpret Interpretations More Than To Interpret Things.

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

It Is A Human Tendency "to Measure Truth And Error By Our Capacity."

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

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

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.

It Is The Part Of Cowardliness, And Not Of Virtue, To Seek To Squat Itself In Some Hollow Lurking Hole, Or To Hide Herself Under Some Massive Tomb, Thereby To Shun The Strokes Of Fortune.

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

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.

The Study Of Books Is A Drowsy And Feeble Exercise Which Does Not Warm You Up.

I Have Here Only Made A Nosegay Of Culled Flowers, And Have Brought Nothing Of My Own But The Thread That Tied Them Together.

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

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.

Virtue Cannot Be Followed But For Herself, And If One Sometimes Borrows Her Mask To Some Other Purpose, She Presently Pulls It Away Again.

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.

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.

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

A Man Should Think Less Of What He Eats And More With Whom He Eats Because No Food Is So Satisfying As Good Company.

Lawyers And Physicians Are An Ill Provision For Any Country.

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

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

There Is No Passion So Contagious As That Of Fear.

Friendship Is The Highest Degree Of Perfection In Society.

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.

An Untempted Woman Cannot Boast Of Her Chastity.

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