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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.

-Michel De Montaigne

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Men Do Not Know

Michel De Montaigne

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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.

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I Would Rather Be An Expert On Me Than On Cicero

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 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

Death, They Say, Acquits Us Of All Obligations.

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

Words Of Wisdom

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.

T Is One And The Same Nature That Rolls On Her Course, And Whoever Has Sufficiently Considered The Present State Of Things Might Certainly Conclude As To Both The Future And The Past.

Let Every Foot Have Its Own Shoe.

Pride And Curiosity Are The Two Scourges Of Our Souls. The Latter Prompts Us To Poke Our Noses Into Everything, And The Former Forbids Us To Leave Anything Unresolved And Undecided.

The Reverse Side Of Truth Has A Hundred Thousand Shapes And No Defined Limits.

To Compose Our Character Is Our Duty, Not To Compose Books, And To Win, Not Battles And Provinces, But Order And Tranquility In Our Conduct. Our Great And Glorious Masterpiece Is To Live Appropriately. All Other Things, Ruling, Hoarding, Building, Are Only Little Appendages And Props, At Most.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Thing I Fear Most Is Fear.

It Is Probable That The Principal Credit Of Miracles, Visions, Enchantments, And Such Extraordinary Occurrences Comes From The Power Of Imagination, Acting Principally Upon The Minds Of The Common People, Which Are Softer.

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

Those Who Make A Practice Of Comparing Human Actions Are Never So Perplexed As When They Try To See Them As A Whole And In The Same Light; For They Commonly Contradict Each Other So Strangely That It Seems Impossible That They Have Come From The Same Shop.

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.

We Need To Interpret Interpretations More Than To Interpret Things.

I See Several Animals That Live So Entire And Perfect A Life, Some Without Sight, Others Without Hearing: Who Knows Whether To Us Also One, Two, Or Three, Or Many Other Senses, May Not Be Wanting?

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

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

What Of A Truth That Is Bounded By These Mountains And Is Falsehood To The World That Lives Beyond?

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

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

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.

Valor Is Stability, Not Of Legs And Arms, But Of Courage And The Soul.

It Has Never Occurred To Me To Wish For Empire Or Royalty, Nor For The Eminence Of Those High And Commanding Fortunes. My Aim Lies Not In That Direction; I Love Myself Too Well.

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

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

To Know How To Live Is My Trade And My Art.

Age Imprints More Wrinkles A In The Mind, Than It Does In The Face, And Souls Are Never, Or Very Rarely Seen, That In Growing Old Do Not Smell Sour And Musty. Man Moves All Together, Both Towards His Perfection And Decay.

All Other Knowledge Is Hurtful To Him Who Has Not Honesty And Good-nature

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

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

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

If Your Doctor Does Not Think It Good For You To Sleep, To Drink Wine, Or To Eat Of A Particular Dish, Do Not Worry; I Will Find You Another Who Will Not Agree With Him.

It Is Not Necessity But Abundance Which Produces Greed.

It Needs Courage To Be Afraid.

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

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

My Appetite Comes To Me While Eating.

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

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

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

There Is A Certain Amount Of Purpose, Acquiescence, And Satisfaction In Nursing One's Melancholy.

Of All Human And Ancient Opinions Concerning Religion, That Seems To Me The Most Likely And Most Excusable, That Acknowledged God As An Incomprehensible Power, The Original And Preserver Of All Things, All Goodness, All Perfection, Receiving And Taking In Good Part The Honour And Reverence That Man Paid Him, Under What Method, Name, Or Ceremonies Soever.

When I Quote Others I Do So In Order To Express My Own Ideas More Clearly.

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.

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

I Care Not So Much What I Am To Others As What I Am To Myself. I Will Be Rich By Myself, And Not By Borrowing.

We Seek And Offer Ourselves To Be Gulled.

I Have Ever Loved To Repose Myself, Whether Sitting Or Lying, With My Heels As High Or Higher Than My Head.

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.

.. Since It Was True That Study, Even When Done Properly, Can Only Teach Us What Wisdom, Right Conduct And Determination Consist In, They Wanted To Put Their Children Directly In Touch With Actual Cases, Teaching Them Not By Hearsay But By Actively Assaying Them, Vigorously Molding And Forming Them Not Merely By Word And Precept But Chiefly By Deeds And Examples, So That Wisdom Should Not Be Something Which The Soul Knows But The Soul's Very Essence And Temperament, Not Something Acquired But A Natural Property.

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

To Know Much Is Often The Cause Of Doubting More.

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

Law Of Attraction

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.

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

Oh, What A Valiant Faculty Is Hope.

It Is A Sign Of Contraction Of The Mind When It Is Content, Or Of Weariness.

I Love Those Historians That Are Either Very Simple Or Most Excellent. Such As Are Between Both (which Is The Most Common Fashion), It Is They That Spoil All; They Will Needs Chew Our Meat For Us And Take Upon Them A Law To Judge, And By Consequence To Square And Incline The Story According To Their Fantasy.

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

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.

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.

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

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

I Honor Most Those To Whom I Show Least Honor; And Where My Soul Moves With Great Alacrity, I Forget The Proper Steps Of Ceremony.

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

Learning Must Not Only Lodge With Us: We Must Marry Her.

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.

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

To Say Less Of Yourself Than Is True Is Stupidity, Not Modesty. To Pay Yourself Less Than You Are Worth Is Cowardice And Pusillanimity.

Indeed, There Is No Such Thing As An Altogether Ugly Woman — Or Altogether Beautiful.

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.

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.

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.

The Smallest Annoyances, Disturb Us The Most.

And Therefore, Reader, I Myself Am The Subject Of My Book: It Is Not Reasonable That You Should Employ Your Leisure On A Topic So Frivolous And So Vain. Therefore, Farewell.

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

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.

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.

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

No Man Profiteth But By The Loss Of Others.

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

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

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

The Beginnings Of All Things Are Weak And Tender. We Must Therefore Be Clear-sighted In The Beginnings, For, As In Their Budding We Discern Not The Danger, So In Their Full Growth We Perceive Not The Remedy.

A Man Should Keep For Himself A Little Back Shop, All His Own, Quite Unadulterated, In Which He Establishes His True Freedom And Chief Place Of Seclusion And Solitude.

Taking It All In All, I Find It Is More Trouble To Watch After Money Than To Get It.

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

When I Express My Opinions It Is So As To Reveal The Measure Of My Sight Not The Measure Of The Thing.

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.

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.

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

All Opinions In The World Agree In This, That Pleasure Is Our End, Although They Differ As To The Means Of Attaining It.

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.

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

A Wise Man Loses Nothing, If He But Save Himself.

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.

Example Is A Bright Looking-glass, Universal And For All Shapes To Look Into.

For Among Other Things He Had Been Counseled To Bring Me To Love Knowledge And Duty By My Own Choice, Without Forcing My Will, And To Educate My Soul Entirely Through Gentleness And Freedom.

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

He That Had Never Seen A River Imagined The First He Met To Be The Sea; And The Greatest Things That Have Fallen Within Our Knowledge We Conclude The Extremes That Nature Makes Of The Kind.

Love To His Soul Gave Eyes; He Knew Things Are Not As They Seem. The Dream Is His Real Life; The World Around Him Is The Dream.

To Die Is Not To Play A Part In Society; It Is The Act Of A Single Person. Let Us Live And Laugh Among Our Friends; Let Us Die And Sulk Among Strangers.

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

... Whoever Believes Anything Esteems That It Is A Work Of Charity To Persuade Another Of It.

Gentleness And Repose Are Paramount To Everything Else In Woman.

We Cannot Fail In Following Nature.

The Continuous Work Of Our Life Is To Build Death.

Man Will Rise, If God By Exception Lends Him A Hand; He Will Rise By Abandoning And Renouncing His Own Means, And Letting Himselfbe Raised And Uplifted By Purely Celestial Means.

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?

It Is Good To Rub And Polish Our Brain Against That Of Others.

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.

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

Que Sçais-je?" (what Do I Know?)

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.

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

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

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.

I Want Death To Find Me Planting My Cabbages.

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

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.

Any Time And Any Place Can Be Used To Study: His Room, A Garden, Is Table, His Bed; When Alone Or In Company; Morning And Evening. His Chief Study Will Be Philosophy, That Former Of Good Judgement And Character Who Is Privileged To Be Concerned With Everything.

Were I To Live My Life Over Again, I Should Live It Just As I Have Done. I Neither Complain Of The Past, Nor Do I Fear The Future.

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.

If You Have Known How To Compose Your Life, You Have Done A Great Deal More Than The Person Who Knows How To Compose A Book. You Have Done More Than The One Who Has Taken Cities And Empires.

Things Are Not Bad In Themselves, But Our Cowardice Makes Them So.

Every Man Carries The Entire Form Of Human Condition.

Human Condition

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Extraordinary Things

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.

Nobody Is Exempt From Saying Stupid Things, The Harm Is To Do It Presumptuously.

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

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

We Are Born To Inquire Into Truth; It Belongs To A Greater To Possess It

Among The Liberal Arts, Let Us Begin With The Art That Liberates Us.

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.

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

A Foreign War Is A Lot Milder Than A Civil War.

Lawyers And Physicians Are An Ill Provision For Any Country.

I Do Not Know Whether I Would Not Like Much Better To Have Produced One Perfectly Formed Child By Intercourse With The Muses Than By Intercourse With My Wife.

The Soul That Has No Established Aim Loses Itself

Man In Sooth Is A Marvellous, Vain, Fickle, And Unstable Subject.

God Sends The Cold According To The Coat.

And Not To Serve For A Table-talk.

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

Not Being Able To Govern Events, I Govern Myself.

Law Of Attraction

Take Care That Old Age Does Not Wrinkle Your Spirit Even More Than Your Face.

Whatever I May Be, I Want To Be Elsewhere Than On Paper. My Art And My Industry Have Been Employed In Making Myself Good For Something; My Studies, In Teaching Me To Do, Not To Write. I Have Put All My Efforts Into Forming My Life. That Is My Trade And My Work.

The Good Opinion Of The Vulgar Is Injurious.

My Errors Are By Now Natural And Incorrigible; But The Good That Worthy Men Do The Public By Making Themselves Imitable, I Shall Perhaps Do By Making Myself Evitable.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

What Enriches Language Is Its Being Handled And Exploited By Beautiful Minds-not So Much By Making Innovations As By Expanding It Through More Vigorous And Varied Applications, By Extending It And Deploying It. It Is Not Words That They Contribute: What They Do Is Enrich Their Words, Deepen Their Meanings And Tie Down Their Usage; They Teach It Unaccustomed Rhythms, Prudently Though And With Ingenuity.

After A Tongue Has Once Got The Knack Of Lying, It Is Not To Be Imagined How Impossible Almost It Is To Reclaim It. Whence It Comes To Pass, That We See Some Men, Who Are Otherwise Very Honest, So Subject To This Vice.

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

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

Death Pays All Debts.

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

Law Of Attraction

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

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

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.

Everyone Calls Barbarity What He Is Not Accustomed To.

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

If I Can, I Shall Keep My Death From Saying Anything That My Life Has Not Already Said.

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

We Are Neither Obstinately Nor Wilfully To Oppose Evils, Nor Truckle Under Them For Want Of Courage, But That We Are Naturally To Give Way To Them, According To Their Condition And Our Own, We Ought To Grant Free Passage To Diseases; And I Find They Stay Less With Me Who Let Them Alone. And I Have Lost Those Which Are Reputed The Most Tenacious And Obstinate Of Their Own Defervescence, Without Any Help Or Art, And Contrary To Their Rules. Let Us A Little Permit Nature To Take Her Own Way; She Better Understands Her Own Affairs Than We.

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

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

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

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.

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

Few Men Have Been Admired Of Their Familiars.

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.

Order A Purge For Your Brain, It Will There Be Much Better Employed Than Upon Your Stomach.

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.

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

On The Highest Throne In The World, We Still Sit Only On Our Own Bottom.

Habit Is A Second Nature.

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