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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.

-Michel De Montaigne

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Our Thoughts Are Always

Michel De Montaigne

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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.

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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.

Every Other Knowledge Is Harmful To Him Who Does Not Have Knowledge Of Goodness.

And One Might Therefore Say Of Me That In This Book I Have Only Made Up A Bunch Of Other People's Flowers, And That Of My Own I Have Only Provided The String That Ties Them Together.

Nothing Is So Firmly Believed As What We Least Know.

God Defend Me From Being An Honest Man According To The Description Which Every Day I See Made By Each Man To His Own Glorification

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

True Freedom Is To Have Power Over Oneself For Everything.

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

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

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.

Obsession Is The Wellspring Of Genius And Madness.

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

Oh, What A Valiant Faculty Is Hope.

Most Pleasures Embrace Us But To Strangle.

The Profit We Possess After Study Is To Have Become Better And Wiser.

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.

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

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

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

It Is The Mind That Maketh Good Or Ill, That Maketh Wretch Or Happy, Rich Or Poor.

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.

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.

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

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

A Wise Man Never Loses Anything, If He Has Himself.

Why Do People Respect The Package Rather Than The Man?

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

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

An Orator Of Past Times Declared That His Calling Was To Make Small Things Appear To Be Grand.

Poverty Of Goods Is Easily Cured; Poverty Of Soul, Impossible.

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

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

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

Not Because Socrates Said So, But Because It Is In Truth My Own Disposition — And Perchance To Some Excess — I Look Upon All Men As My Compatriots, And Embrace A Pole As A Frenchman, Making Less Account Of The National Than Of The Universal And Common Bond.

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

Oh These Foolish Men! They Could Not Create So Much As A Worm, But They Create Gods By The Dozens.

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

Every Man Carries The Entire Form Of Human Condition.

Human Condition

Our Great And Glorious Masterpiece Is To Live Appropriately.

In My Opinion It Is The Happy Living, And Not, As Antisthenes Said, The Happy Lying, In Which Human Happiness Consists.

We Feel A Kind Of Bittersweet Pricking Of Malicious Delight In Contemplating The Misfortunes Of Others.

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing Fixes A Thing So Intensely In The Memory As The Wish To Forget It.

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

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.

God Defend Me From Myself.

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

Law Of Attraction

There Is Nothing Which So Poisons Princes As Flattery, Nor Anything Whereby Wicked Men More Easily Obtain Credit And Favor With Them.

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.

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

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.

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

The Worst Condition Of Humans Is When They Lose Knowledge And Control Of Themselves.

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.

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

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.

We Judge A Horse Not Only By Its Pace On A Racecourse, But Also By Its Walk, Nay, When Resting In Its Stable.

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 Love A Gay And Sociable Wisdom, And Shun Harshness And Austerity In Behaviour, Holding Every Surly Countenance Suspect.

Intelligence Is Required To Be Able To Know That A Man Knows Not.

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.

A Well-bred Man Is Always Sociable And Complaisant.

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.

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

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

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.

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

The Relish Of Good And Evil Depends In A Great Measure Upon The Opinion We Have Of Them.

Cognitive Therapy

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

There Is Nothing So Extreme That Is Not Allowed By The Custom Of Some Nation Or Other.

Friendship Is The Highest Degree Of Perfection In Society.

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

And Not To Serve For A Table-talk.

The Laws Keep Up Their Credit, Not By Being Just, But Because They Are Laws; 'tis The Mystic Foundation Of Their Authority; They Have No Other, And It Well Answers Their Purpose. They Are Often Made By Fools; Still Oftener By Men Who, Out Of Hatred To Equality, Fail In Equity; But Always By Men, Vain And Irresolute Authors.

I Never Rebel So Much Against France As Not To Regard Paris With A Friendly Eye; She Has Had My Heart Since My Childhood... I Love Her Tenderly, Even To Her Warts And Her Spots. I Am French Only By This Great City: The Glory Of France, And One Of The Noblest Ornaments Of The World.

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

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

There Is No Virtue Which Does Not Rejoice A Well-descended Nature; There Is A Kind Of I Know Not What Congratulation In Well-doing, That Gives Us An Inward Satisfaction, And A Certain Generous Boldness That Accompanies A Good Conscience.

Congratulations

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Lend Yourself To Others, But Give Yourself To Yourself.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

One Should Be Ever Booted And Spurred And Ready To Depart.

Death And Dying

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

We Are All Of Us Richer Than We Think We Are; But We Are Taught To Borrow And To Beg, And Brought Up More To Make Use Of What Is Another's Than Of Our Own.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

A Man Must Either Imitate The Vicious Or Hate Them.

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

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

In My Youth I Studied For Ostentation; Later, A Little To Gain Wisdom; Now, For Recreation; Never For Gain.

Nature Should Have Been Pleased To Have Made This Age Miserable, Without Making It Also Ridiculous.

How Many Condemnations I Have Witnessed More Criminal Than The Crime!

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.

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

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

Women When They Marry Buy A Cat In The Bag.

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

Lovers Are Angry, Reconciled, Entreat, Thank, Appoint, And Finally Speak All Things, By Their.

I Have Seen Books Made Of Things Neither Studied Nor Ever Understood ... The Author Contenting Himself For His Own Part, To Have Cast The Plot And Projected The Design Of It, And By His Industry To Have Bound Up The Fagot Of Unknown Provisions; At Least The Ink And Paper His Own. This May Be Said To Be A Buying Or Borrowing, And Not A Making Or Compiling Of A Book.

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

The Soul That Has No Established Aim Loses Itself

There Is Nothing More Notable In Socrates Than That He Found Time, When He Was An Old Man, To Learn Music And Dancing, And Thought It Time Well Spent.

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

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

There Is No Passion That So Much Transports Men From Their Right Judgments As Anger. No One Would Demur Upon Punishing A Judge With Death Who Should Condemn A Criminal Upon The Account Of His Own Choler; Why Then Should Fathers And Pedants Be Any More Allowed To Whip And Chastise Children In Their Anger? It Is Then No Longer Correction Bat Revenge. Chastisement Is Instead Of Physic To Children; And Should We Suffer A Physician Who Should Be Animated Against And Enraged At His Patient?

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

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.

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

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

Poetry Reproduces An Indefinable Mood That Is More Amorous Than Love Itself. Venus Is Not So Beautiful All Naked, Alive, And Panting, As She Is Here In Virgil.

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

Our Truth Of Nowadays Is Not What Is, But What Others Can Be Convinced Of; Just As We Call "money" Not Only That Which Is Legal, But Also Any Counterfeit That Will Pass.

Every Place Swarms With Commentaries; Of Authors There Is Great Scarcity.

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

The Art Of Dining Well Is No Slight Art, The Pleasure Not A Slight Pleasure; Neither The Greatest Captains Nor The Greatest Philosophers Have Disdained The Use Or Science Of Eating Well.

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

Every Abridgement Of A Good Book Is A Fool Abridged.

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.

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.

Lay A Beam Between These Two Towers Of Such Width As We Need To Walk On: There Is No Philosophical Wisdom Of Such Great Firmness That It Can Give Us Courage To Walk On It As We Should If It Were On The Ground.

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.

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

The Ceaseless Labour Of Your Life Is To Build The House Of Death.

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

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

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

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

Words Of Wisdom

For A Desperate Disease A Desperate Cure.

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

In His Commerce With Men I Mean Him To Include- And That Principally- Those Who Live Only In The Memory Of Books. By Means Of History He Will Frequent Those Great Souls Of Former Years. 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.

Who Is Only Good That Others May Know It, And That He May Be The Better Esteemed When 'tis Known, Who Will Do Well But Upon Condition That His Virtue May Be Known To Men, Is One From Whom Much Service Is Not To Be Expected.

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.

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

There Is 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.

Intemperance Is The Plaque Of Sensuality, And Temperance Is Not Its Bane But Its Seasoning.

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.

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.

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

My Art And Profession Is To Live.

Whatever Is Preached To Us, And Whatever We Learn, We Should Still Remember That It Is Man That Gives, And Man That Receives; It Is A Mortal Hand That Presents It To Us, It Is A Mortal Hand That Accepts It.

There Is No Conversation More Boring Than The One Where Everybody Agrees.

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

Let Every Foot Have Its Own Shoe.

Necessity Reconciles And Brings Men Together; And This Accidental Connection Afterward Forms Itself Into Laws.

No Noble Thing Can Be Done Without Risks.

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.

The Wise Man Lives As Long As He Ought, Not So Long As He Can.

I Enjoy Books As Misers Enjoy Treasures, Because I Know I Can Enjoy Them Whenever I Please.

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.

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

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

I Enter Into Discussion And Argument With Great Freedom And Ease, Inasmuch As Opinion Finds Me In A Bad Soil To Penetrate And Take Deep Root In. No Propositions Astonish Me, No Belief Offends Me, Whatever Contrast It Offers To My Own. There Is No Fancy So Frivolous And So Extravagant That It Does Not Seem To Me Quite Suitable To The Production Of The Human Mind.

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.

Greatness Of Soul Consists Not So Much In Soaring High And In Pressing Forward, As In Knowing How To Adapt And Limit Oneself.

The Most Fruitful And Natural Exercise For Our Minds Is, In My Opinion, Conversation.

To Smell, Though Well, Is To Stink.

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

My Appetite Comes To Me While Eating.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Diogenes Was Asked What Wine He Liked Best; And He Answered As I Would Have Done When He Said, "somebody Else's".

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.

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