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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.

-Michel De Montaigne

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Pride And Curiosity Are

Michel De Montaigne

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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.

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

Most Men Are Rich In Borrowed Sufficiency: A Man May Very Well Say A Good Thing, Give A Good Answer, Cite A Good Sentence, Without At All Seeing The Force Of Either The One Or The Other.

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.

We Cannot Be Held To What Is Beyond Our Strength And Means; For At Times The Accomplishment And Execution May Not Be In Our Power, And Indeed There Is Nothing Really In Our Own Power Except The Will: On This Are Necessarily Based And Founded All The Principles That Regulate The Duty Of Man.

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.

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

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

If These Essays Were Worthy Of Being Judged, It Might Fall Out, In My Opinion, That They Would Not Find Much Favour, Either With Common And Vulgar Minds, Or With Uncommon And Eminent Ones: The Former Would Not Find Enough In Them, The Latter Would Find Too Much; They Might Manage To Live Somewhere In The Middle Region.

Women When They Marry Buy A Cat In The Bag.

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

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.

In My Opinion, Every Rich Man Is A Miser.

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

I Do Not Believe, From What I Have Been Told About This People, That There Is Anything Barbarous Or Savage About Them, Except That We All Call Barbarous Anything That Is Contrary To Our Own Habits.

And I Loathe People Who Find It Harder To Put Up With A Gown Askew Than With A Soul Askew And Who Judge A Man By His Bow, His Bearing And His Boots.

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

Though We May Be Learned By Another's Knowledge, We Can Never Be Wise But By Our Own Experience.

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

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

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

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

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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.

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.

Lend Yourself To Others, But Give Yourself To Yourself.

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

I Do Not Speak The Minds Of Others Except To Speak My Own Mind Better.

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

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

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

We Only Labor To Stuff The Memory, And Leave The Conscience And The Understanding Unfurnished And Void.

The Memory Represents To Us Not What We Choose But What It Pleases.

To Smell, Though Well, Is To Stink.

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 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.

Lying Is A Disgraceful Vice, And One That Plutarch Paints In Most Disgraceful Colors, When He Says That It Is "affording Testimony That One First Despises God, And Then Fears Men." It Is Not Possible More Happily To Describe Its Horrible, Disgusting, And Abandoned Nature; For Can We Imagine Anything More Vile Than To Be Cowards With Regard To Men, And Brave With Regard To God.

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.

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

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

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

Whoever Will Be Cured Of Ignorance, Let Him Confess It.

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.

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

How Often, Being Moved Under A False Cause, If The Person Offending Makes A Good Defense And Presents Us With A Just Excuse, Are We Angry Against Truth And Innocence Itself?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Men ... Are Not Agreed About Any One Thing, Not Even That Heaven Is Over Our Heads.

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

Whatever Can Be Done Another Day Can Be Done Today.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Reason Has So Many Forms That We Do Not Know Which To Choose-experiment Has No Fewer.

All Permanent Decisions Are Made In A Temporary State Of Mind.

When We Have Got It, We Want Something Else.

Learning Is A Good Medicine: But No Medicine Is Powerful Enough To Preserve Itself From Taint And Corruption Independently Of Defects In The Jar That It Is Kept In. One Man Sees Clearly But Does Not See Straight: Consequently He Sees What Is Good But Fails To Follow It; He Sees Knowledge And Does Not Use It.

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

Travelling Through The World Produces A Marvellous Clarity In The Judgment Of Men. We Are All Of Us Confined And Enclosed Within Ourselves, And See No Farther Than The End Of Our Nose.

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

In The Education Of Children There Is Nothing Like Alluring The Interest And Affection; Otherwise You Only Make So Many Asses Laden With Books.

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

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.

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

Experience Stands On Its Own Dunghill In Medicine, And Reason Yields It Place. Medicine Has Always Professed Experience To Be The Touchstone Of Its Operations.

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.

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

I Have Never Observed Other Effects Of Whipping Than To Render Boys More Cowardly, Or More Willfully Obstinate.

Everyone Calls Barbarity What He Is Not Accustomed To.

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.

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

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

Live In The Moment

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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.

The Clatter Of Arms Drowns Out The Voice Of Law.

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.

There Is More Ado To Interpret Interpretations Than To Interpret Things, And More Books Upon Books Than Upon Any Other Subject; We Do Nothing But Comment Upon One Another. Every Place Swarms With Commentaries; Of Authors There Is Great Scarcity.

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

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

Is It Not Better To Remain In Suspense Than To Entangle Yourself In The Many Errors That The Human Fancy Has Produced? Is It Not Better To Suspend Your Convictions Than To Get Mixed Up In These Seditious And Quarrelsome Divisions?

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.

Seneca's Virtue Shows Forth So Live And Vigorous In His Writings, And The Defense Is So Clear There Against Some Of These Imputations, As That Of His Wealth And Excessive Spending, That I Would Not Believe Any Testimony To The Contrary.

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

Every Man Bears The Whole Stamp Of The Human Condition.

The Man Who Thinks He Knows Does Not Yet Know What Knowing Is

We Need To Interpret Interpretations More Than To Interpret Things.

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

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

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

A Strong Memory Is Commonly Coupled With Infirm Judgment.

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

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The Day Of Your Birth Leads You To Death As Well As To Life.

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.

It Is An Absolute Perfection... To Get The Very Most Out Of One's Individuality.

We Must Learn To Suffer What We Cannot Evade; Our Life, Like The Harmony Of The World, Is Composed Of Contrary Things, And One Part Is No Less Necessary Than The Other.

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.

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.

As For Me, Then, I Love Life And Cultivate It Just As God Has Been Pleased To Grant It To Us.

The Confidence In Another Man's Virtue Is No Light Evidence Of A Man's Own, And God Willingly Favors Such A Confidence.

God Is Favorable To Those Whom He Makes To Die By Degrees; 'tis The Only Benefit Of Old Age. The Last Death Will Be So Much The Less Painful: It Will Kill But A Quarter Of A Man Or But Half A One At Most.

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

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.

Books Are Pleasant, But If By Being Over-studious We Impair Our Health And Spoil Our Good Humour, Two Of The Best Things We Have, Let Us Give It Over. I, For My Part, Am One Of Those Who Think No Fruit Derived From Them Can Recompense So Great A Loss.

Obsession Is The Wellspring Of Genius And Madness.

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

It Is Not Necessity But Abundance Which Produces Greed.

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.

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.

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

To Philosophize Is To Learn To Die.

Excellent Memories Are Often Coupled With Feeble Judgments.

The Concern That Some Women Show At The Absence Of Their Husbands, Does Not Arise From Their Not Seeing Them And Being With Them, But From Their Apprehension That Their Husbands Are Enjoying Pleasures In Which They Do Not Participate, And Which, From Their Being At A Distance, They Have Not The Power Of Interrupting.

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

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

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

It Is Not A Mind, It Is Not A Body That We Educate, But It Is A Man, And We Must Not Make Two Parts Of Him.

How Many Quarrels, And How Important, Has The Doubt As To The Meaning Of This Syllable "hoc" Produced For The World!

Fear Sometimes Adds Wings To The Heels, And Sometimes Nails Them To The Ground, And Fetters Them From Moving.

Vexations May Be Petty, But They Are Vexations Still.

The Honor We Receive From Those That Fear Us, Is Not Honor; Those Respects Are Paid To Royalty And Not To Me.

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.

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

Oh, What A Valiant Faculty Is Hope, That In A Mortal Subject, And In A Moment, Makes Nothing Of Usurping Infinity, Immensity, Eternity, And Of Supplying Its Masters Indigence, At Its Pleasure, With All Things He Can Imagine Or Desire!

It Is Easier To Sacrifice Great Than Little Things.

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

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

Who Feareth To Suffer Suffereth Already, Because He Feareth.

What A Man Hates, He Takes Seriously.

There Is No Doubt That Greek And Latin Are Great And Handsome Ornaments, But We Buy Them Too Dear.

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

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.

There Never Were, In The World, Two Opinions Alike, No More Than Two Hairs, Or Two Grains; The Most Universal Quality Is Diversity.

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

It Is Setting A High Value Upon Our Opinions To Roast Men And Women Alive On Account Of Them.

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.

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

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.

One Open Way Of Speaking Introduces Another Open Way Of Speaking, And Draws Out Discoveries, Like Wine And Love.

Make Use Of Life While You Have It. Whether You Have Lived Enough Depends Upon Yourself, Not On The Number Of Your Years.

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

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

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

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

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

The Human Face Is A Weak Guarantee; Yet It Deserves Some Consideration. And If I Had To Whip The Wicked, I Would Do So More Severely To Those Who Belied And Betrayed The Promises That Nature Had Implanted On Their Brows; I Would Punish Malice More Harshly When It Was Hidden Under A Kindly Appearance.

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

To Understand Via The Heart Is Not To Understand.

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

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

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We Trouble Our Life By Thoughts About Death, And Our Death By Thoughts About Life.

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.

A Well-bred Man Is Always Sociable And Complaisant.

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

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

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.

Oh, What A Valiant Faculty Is Hope.

Age Imprints More Wrinkles In The Mind Than It Does On The Face.

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

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

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

We Hold Death, Poverty, And Grief For Our Principal Enemies; But This Death, Which Some Repute The Most Dreadful Of All Dreadful Things, Who Does Not Know That Others Call It The Only Secure Harbor From The Storm And Tempests Of Life, The Sovereign Good Of Nature, The Sole Support Of Liberty, And The Common And Sudden Remedy Of All Evils?

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The Most Unhappy And Frail Creatures Are Men And Yet They Are The Proudest.

Things Seem Greater By Imagination Than They Are In Effect.

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.

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.

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

My Reason Is Not Framed To Bend Or Stoop: My Knees Are.

When I Dance, I Dance; When I Sleep, I Sleep; Yes, And When I Walk Alone In A Beautiful Orchard, If My Thoughts Drift To Far-off Matters For Some Part Of The Time For Some Other Part I Lead Them Back Again To The Walk, The Orchard, To The Sweetness Of This Solitude, To Myself.

Most Pleasures Embrace Us But To Strangle.

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.

Unless A Man Feels He Has A Good Enough Memory, He Should Never Venture To Lie.

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

For Me, Who Only Desire To Become Wise, Not More Learned Or Eloquent, These Logical Or Aristotelian Dispositions Of Parts Are Of No Use.

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

The Worthiest Man To Be Known, And For A Pattern To Be Presented To The World, He Is The Man Of Whom We Have Most Certain Knowledge. He Hath Been Declared And Enlightened By The Most Clear-seeing Men That Ever Were; The Testimonies We Have Of Him Are In Faithfulness And Sufficiency Most Admirable.

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

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

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

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

Is It Not Enough To Make Me Come Back To Life Out Of Spite, To Have Someone Who Spat In My Face While I Existed Come And Rub My Feet When I Am Beginning To Exist No Longer?

My Opinion Is That We Must Lend Ourselves To Others And Give Ourselves Only To Ourselves. If My Will Happened To Be Prone To Mortgage And Attach Itself, I Would Not Last: I Am Too Tender, Both By Nature And By Practice.

When I Was Young, Beautiful Ancient Statues Were Castrated, So That The Eye Might Not Be Corrupted.... Nothing Was Gained, Unless Horses And Asses Had Also Been Castrated.

I Had Rather Fashion My Mind Than Furnish It.

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.

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.

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

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

Ambition Is, Of All Other, The Most Contrary Humor To Solitude; And Glory And Repose Are So Inconsistent That They Cannot Possibly Inhabit One And The Same Place; And For So Much As I Understand, Those Have Only Their Arms And Legs Disengaged From The Crowd, Their Mind And Intention Remain Engaged Behind More Than Ever.

Men Are Most Apt To Believe What They Least Understand.

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