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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.

-Michel De Montaigne

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Memory Is A Wonderfully

Michel De Montaigne

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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.

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

It Makes Me Hate Accepting Things That Are Probable When They Are Held Up Before Me As Infallibly True. I Prefer These Words Which Tone Down And Modify The Hastiness Of Our Propositions: "perhaps, In Some Sort, Some, They Say, I Think," And The Like.

Oh, What A Valiant Faculty Is Hope.

I Don't Break The Law* Made For Crooks, When I Take Away My Own Property - Thus I Am Not Obliged To Conform To The Law Made For Murderers When I Deprive Myself Of My Own Life.

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

Que Sçais-je?" (what Do I Know?)

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

Finding Yourself

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 .

Confidence In Others' Honesty Is No Light Testimony Of One's Own Integrity.

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

The Finest Lives In My Opinion Are The Common Model, Without Miracle And Without Extravagance.

A Man Must Live In The World And Make The Best Of It, Such As It Is.

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

A Woman Is No Sooner Ours Than We Are No Longer Hers.

No Pleasure Is Fully Delightful Without Communications, And No Delight Absolute Except Imparted.

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

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

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

It Is Fear That I Stand Most In Fear Of, In Sharpness It Exceeds Every Other Feeling.

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

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.

Silence And Modesty Are Very Valuable Qualities In Conversation.

There Is No Man So Good That If He Placed All His Actions And Thoughts Under The Scrutiny Of The Laws, He Would Not Deserve Hanging Ten Times In His Life.

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

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.

Those That Will Combat Use And Custom By The Strict Rules Of Grammar Do But Jest

I Will Follow The Right Side Even To The Fire, But Excluding The Fire If I Can.

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.

Obstinacy And Heat In Argument Are Surest Proofs Of Folly. Is There Anything So Stubborn, Obstinate, Disdainful, Contemplative, Grave, Or Serious, As An Ass?

Nothing Is So Firmly Believed As What We Least Know.

The Greater Part Of The World's Troubles Are Due To Questions Of Grammar.

The Religion Of My Doctor Or My Lawyer Cannot Matter. That Consideration Has Nothing In Common With The Functions Of The Friendship They Owe Me.

As By Some Might Be Saide Of Me: That Here I Have But Gathered A Nosegay Of Strange Floures, And Have Put Nothing Of Mine Unto It, But The Thred To Binde Them. Certes, I Have Given Unto Publike Opinion, That These Borrowed Ornaments Accompany Me; But I Meane Not They Should Cover Or Hide Me.

As For Extraordinary Things, All The Provision In The World Would Not Suffice.

Extraordinary Things

Decency, Not To Dare To Do That In Public Which It Is Decent Enough To Do In Private.

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.

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

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 I Were Of The Trade, I Should Naturalize Art As Much As They "artialize" Nature.

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

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.

Aesop, That Great Man, Saw His Master Making Water As He Walked. "what!" He Said, "must We Void Ourselves As We Run?" Use Our Timeas Best We May, Yet A Great Part Of It Will Still Be Idly And Ill Spent.

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.

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

Every Day I Hear Stupid People Say Things That Are Not Stupid.

Few Men Have Been Admired Of Their Familiars.

Things Seem Greater By Imagination Than They Are In Effect.

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

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.

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.

We Perceive No Charms That Are Not Sharpened, Puffed Out, And Inflated By Artifice. Those Which Glide Along Naturally And Simply Easily Escape A Sight So Gross As Ours.

That Is Why Bias Jested With Those Who Were Going Through The Perils Of A Great Storm With Him And Calling On The Gods For Help: "shut Up," He Said, "so That They Do Not Realize That You Are Here With Me.

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

Is There Anything So Grave And Serious As An Ass?

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.

He That Had Never Seen A River, Imagined The First He Met With To Be The Sea.

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.

The Continuous Work Of Our Life Is To Build Death.

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.

It Is Not Necessity But Abundance Which Produces Greed.

A Man Must Always Study, But He Must Not Always Go To School: What A Contemptible Thing Is An Old Abecedarian!

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

True It Is That She Who Escapeth Safe And Unpolluted From Out The School Of Freedom, Giveth More Confidence Of Herself Than She Who Comet Sound Out Of The School Of Severity And Restraint.

Self Confidence

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.

I Agree That We Should Work And Prolong The Functions Of Life As Far As We Can, And Hope That Death May Find Me Planting My Cabbages, But Indifferent To Him And Still More To The Unfinished State Of My Garden.

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.

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

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.

Hath God Obliged Himself Not To Exceed The Bounds Of Our Knowledge?

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.

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.

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 No Desire More Natural Than The Desire Of Knowledge. (il N'est Desir Plus Naturel Que Le Desir De Connaissance)

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

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

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.

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

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

Persons Of Mean Understandings, Not So Inquisitive, Nor So Well Instructed, Are Made Good Christians, And By Reverence And Obedience, Implicity Believe, And Abide By Their Belief.

Tis The Taste Of Effeminacy That Disrelishes Ordinary And Accustomed Things.

Saying Is One Thing And Doing Is Another

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

Don't Discuss Yourself, For You Are Bound To Lose; If You Belittle Yourself, You Are Believed; If You Praise Yourself, You Are Disbelieved.

When I Play With My Cat, Who Knows Whether She Is Not Amusing Herself With Me More Than I With Her.

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.

Habit Is Second Nature.

Experience Has Taught Me This, That We Undo Ourselves By Impatience. Misfortunes Have Their Life And Their Limits, Their Sickness And Their Health.

Pride Dwells In The Thought; The Tongue Can Have But A Very Little Share In It.

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

A Well-bred Man Is Always Sociable And Complaisant.

All I Say Is By Way Of Discourse, And Nothing By Way Of Advice. I Should Not Speak So Boldly If It Were My Due To Be Believed.

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

The Soul Which Has No Fixed Purpose In Life Is Lost; To Be Everywhere, Is To Be Nowhere.

Lost Friendship

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.

I Would Rather Be An Expert On Me Than On Cicero

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.

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

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

Live In The Moment

Past Present Future

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

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

Marriage, A Market Which Has Nothing Free But The Entrance.

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

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

[i]n My Country, When They Would Say A Man Has No Sense, They Say, Such An One Has No Memory; And When I Complain Of The Defect Of Mine, They Do Not Believe Me, And Reprove Me, As Though I Accused Myself For A Fool: Not Discerning The Difference Betwixt Memory And Understanding, Which Is To Make Matters Still Worse For Me. But They Do Me Wrong; For Experience, Rather, Daily Shows Us, On The Contrary, That A Strong Memory Is Commonly Coupled With Infirm Judgment.

Every Man Carries The Entire Form Of Human Condition.

Human Condition

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

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

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

I Am Myself The Matter Of My Book.

The Virtue Of The Soul Does Not Consist In Flying High, But In Walking Orderly.

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

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

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

Each Person Calls Barbarism Whatever Is Not His Or Her Own Practice.... We May Call Cannibals Barbarians, In Respect To The Rulesof Reason, But Not In Respect To Ourselves, Who Surpass Them In Every Kind Of Barbarity.

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.

There Is No Passion So Contagious As That Of Fear.

Friendship Is The Highest Degree Of Perfection In Society.

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

To Philosophize Is Nothing Else Than To Prepare Oneself For Death.

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.

Man (in Good Earnest) Is A Marvellous Vain, Fickle, And Unstable Subject, And On Whom It Is Very Hard To Form Any Certain And Uniform Judgment.

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

Wisdom Is A Solid And Entire Building, Of Which Every Piece Keeps Its Place And Bears Its Mark.

What Am I To Choose? "choose What You Please, As Long As You Choose." There You Have A Foolish Answer, Which Seems To Be The Outcome, However, Of All Dogmatism, Which Will Not Allow Us To Be Ignorant Of That Which We Are Ignorant.

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.

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

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.

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.

It Is The Part Of Cowardice, Not Of Courage, To Go And Crouch In A Hole Under A Massive Tomb, To Avoid The Blows Of Fortune.

Who Feareth To Suffer Suffereth Already, Because He Feareth.

I Quote Others Only In Order The Better To Express Myself.

I Never Met A Man Who Thought His Thinking Was Faulty.

Nor Is It Enough To Toughen Up His Soul; You Must Also Toughen Up His Muscles.

It Is Not Death, It Is Dying That Alarms Me.

Death And Dying

Whoever Will Imagine A Perpetual Confession Of Ignorance, A Judgment Without Leaning Or Inclination, On Any Occasion Whatever, Hasa Conception Of Pyrrhonism.

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.

As Soon As Women Become Ours We Are No Longer Theirs.

The Finest Souls Are Those That Have The Most Variety And Suppleness.

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.

I Would Have Every Man Write What He Knows And No More.

Every One's True Worship Was That Which He Found In Use In The Place Where He Chanced To Be.

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

We Must Learn To Suffer What We Cannot Evade.

Every Abridgement Of A Good Book Is A Fool Abridged.

If Faces Were Not Alike, We Could Not Distinguish Men From Beasts; If They Were Not Different, We Could Not Tell One Man From Another.

To Divert Myself From A Troublesome Fancy, It Is But To Run To My Books; They Presently Fix Me To Them, And Drive The Other Out Of My Thoughts, And Do Not Mutiny To See That I Have Only Recourse To Them For Want Of Other More, Real, Natural, And Lively Conveniences; They Always Receive Me With The Same Kindness.

One May Be Humble Out Of Pride.

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

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

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

It's Not Victory If It Doesn't End The War.

I Have Seen People Rude By Being Over-polite.

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

Experience Has Further Taught Me This, That We Ruin Ourselves By Impatience.

Life Itself Is Neither A Good Nor An Evil: Life Is Where Good Or Evil Find A Place, Depending On How You Make It For Them.

Words Of Wisdom

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.

Fame And Tranquility Can Never Be Bedfellows.

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.

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

A Speech Belongs Half To The Speaker And Half To The Listener.

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

I Had Rather Fashion My Mind Than Furnish It.

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

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

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

The Customs And Practices Of Life In Society Sweep Us Along.

We Are Nearer Neighbours To Ourselves Than Whiteness To Snow, Or Weight To Stones.

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.

I Am Afraid That Our Eyes Are Bigger Than Our Stomachs, And That We Have More Curiosity Than Understanding. We Grasp At Everything, But Catch Nothing Except Wind.

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

Each Man Calls Barbarism Whatever Is Not His Own Practice; For Indeed It Seems We Have No Other Test Of Truth And Reason Than The Example And Pattern Of The Opinions And Customs Of The Country We Live In

A Man Has Need Of Tough Ears To Hear Himself Fairly Judged.

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.

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

The Shortest Way To Arrive At Glory Should Be To Do That For Conscience Which We Do For Glory. And The Virtue Of Alexander Appears To Me With Much Less Vigor In His Theater Than That Of Socrates In His Mean And Obscure. I Can Easily Conceive Socrates In The Place Of Alexander, But Alexander In That Of Socrates I Cannot.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

My Art And Profession Is To Live.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

"ultimately The Bond Of All Companionship, Whether In Marriage Or In Friendship, Is Conversation." -if You Press Me To Say Why I Loved Him, I Can Say No More Than It Was Because He Was He And I Was I.

I Walk Firmer And More Secure Uphill Than Down.

Lend Yourself To Others, But Give Yourself To Yourself.

Nature Is A Gentle Guide, But Not More Sweet And Gentle Than Prudent And Just.

One Must Be A Little Foolish If One Does Not Want To Be Even More Stupid.

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

I Do Not Correct My First Imaginings By My Second--well, Yes, Perhaps A Word Or So, But Only To Vary, Not To Delete. I Want To Represent The Course Of My Humors And I Want People To See Each Part At Its Birth.

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.

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

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