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The Clatter Of Arms Drowns Out The Voice Of Law.

-Michel De Montaigne

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The Clatter Of Arms

Michel De Montaigne

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The Clatter Of Arms Drowns Out The Voice Of Law.

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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.

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.

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.

Getting Married Is Very Much Like Going To A Restaurant With Friends. You Order What You Want Then When You See What The Other Person Has, You Wish You Had Ordered That.

There Is No Course Of Life So Weak And Sottish As That Which Is Managed By Order, Method, And Discipline.

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

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

The Wise Man Should Withdraw His Soul Within, Out Of The Crowd, And Keep It In Freedom And Power To Judge Things Freely; But As For Externals, He Should Wholly Follow The Accepted Fashions And Forms.

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.

When All Is Summed Up, A Man Never Speaks Of Himself Without Loss; His Accusations Of Himself Are Always Believed; His Praises Never.

Lost Friendship

[marriage] Happens As With Cages: The Birds Without Despair To Get In, And Those Within Despair Of Getting Out.

What A Wonderful Thing It Is That Drop Of Seed, From Which We Are Produced, Bears In Itself The Impressions, Not Only Of The Bodily Shape, But Of The Thoughts And Inclinations Of Our Fathers!

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

My Appetite Comes To Me While Eating.

I Put Forward Formless And Unresolved Notions, As Do Those Who Publish Doubtful Questions To Debate In The Schools, Not To Establish The Truth But To Seek It.

Beauty Is The True Prerogative Of Women, And So Peculiarly Their Own, That Our Sex, Though Naturally Requiring Another Sort Of Feature, Is Never In Its Lustre But When Puerile And Beardless, Confused And Mixed With Theirs.

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

Finding Yourself

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

The Most Ordinary Things, The Most Common And Familiar, If We Could See Them In Their True Light, Would Turn Out To Be The Grandest Miracles.

No Pleasure Has Any Savor For Me Without Communication.

Without Communication

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

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.

No Wind Favors He Who Has No Destined Port.

The Recognition Of Virtue Is Not Less Valuable From The Lips Of The Man Who Hates It, Since Truth Forces Him To Acknowledge It; And Though He May Be Unwilling To Take It Into His Inmost Soul, He At Least Decks Himself Out In Its Trappings.

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

No Man Is A Hero To His Own Valet.

I Would Rather Be An Expert On Me Than On Cicero

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.

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 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.

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.

We Are Nothing But Ceremony; Ceremony Carries Us Away, And We Leave The Substance Of Things; We Hang On To The Branches And Abandon The Trunk And Body.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Man Is The Sole Animal Whose Nudities Offend His Own Companions, And The Only One Who, In His Natural Actions, Withdraws And Hides Himself From His Own Kind.

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.

If I Speak Of Myself In Different Ways, That Is Because I Look At Myself In Different Ways.

Everyone Calls Barbarity What He Is Not Accustomed To.

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

Every Movement Reveals Us.

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?

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.

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.

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

And As Hearbes And Trees Are Bettered And Fortified By Being Transplanted, So Formes Of Speach Are Embellished And Graced By Variation.... As In Our Ordinary Language, We Shall Sometimes Meete With Excellent Phrases, And Quaint Metaphors, Whose Blithnesse Fadeth Through Age, And Colour Is Tarnish By To Common Using Them.

To Smell, Though Well, Is To Stink.

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.

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

If Falsehood, Like Truth, Had But One Face, We Would Be More On Equal Terms. For We Would Consider The Contrary Of What The Liar Said To Be Certain. But The Opposite Of Truth Has A Hundred Thousand Faces And An Infinite Field.

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

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 Curiosity Of Knowing Things Has Been Given To Man For A Scourge.

An Able Reader Often Discovers In Other People's Writings Perfections Beyond Those That The Author Put In Or Perceived, And Lends Them Richer Meanings And Aspects.

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

Difficulty Is A Coin The Learned Make Use Of Like Jugglers, To Conceal The Inanity Of Their Art.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

I Have Never Known A Greater Miracle, Or Monster, Than Myself.

Is There Anything So Grave And Serious As An Ass?

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

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

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

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

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

There Is No More Expensive Thing Than A Free Gift.

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.

Let Every Foot Have Its Own Shoe.

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

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

Their [the Skeptics'] Way Of Speaking Is: "i Settle Nothing. . . . I Do Not Understand It. . . . Nothing Seems True That May Not Seem False." Their Sacramental Word Is . . . , Which Is To Say, I Suspend My Judgment.

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

Socrates And Then Archesilaus Used To Make Their Pupils Speak First; They Spoke Afterwards. 'obest Plerumque Iss Discere Volunt Authoritas Eorum Qui Docent.' [for Those Who Want To Learn, The Obstacle Can Often Be The Authority Of Those Who Teach]

Every Man Has Within Himself The Entire Human Condition

Human Condition

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

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.

The Plague Of Man Is The Opinion Of Knowledge. That Is Why Ignorance Is So Recommended By Our Religion As A Quality Suitable To Belief And Obedience.

There Is No Pleasure To Me Without Communication: There Is Not So Much As A Sprightly Thought Comes Into My Mind That It Does Not Grieve Me To Have Produced Alone, And That I Have No One To Tell It To.

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?

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

Friendship Is The Highest Degree Of Perfection In Society.

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.

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

As For Our Pupils Talk, Let His Virtue And His Sense Of Right And Wrong Shine Through It And Have No Guide But Reason. Make Him Understand That Confessing An Error Which He Discovers In His Own Argument Even When He Alone Has Noticed It Is An Act Of Justice And Integrity, Which Are The Main Qualities He Pursues; Stubbornness And Rancour Are Vulgar Qualities, Visible In Common Souls Whereas To Think Again, To Change One's Mind And To Give Up A Bad Case On The Heat Of The Argument Are Rare Qualities Showing Strength And Wisdom.

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

The Great And Glorious Masterpiece Of Men Is To Live To The Point. All Other Things-to Reign, To Hoard, To Build-are, At Most, But Inconsiderable Props And Appendages.

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

The Daughter-in-law Of Pythagoras Said That A Woman Who Goes To Bed With A Man Ought To Lay Aside Her Modesty With Her Skirt, And Put It On Again With Her Petticoat

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.

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

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

In Nine Lifetimes, You'll Never Know As Much About Your Cat As Your Cat Knows About You.

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

Now, Since Our Condition Accommodates Things To Itself, And Transforms Them According To Itself, We No Longer Know Things In Their Reality; For Nothing Comes To Us That Is Not Altered And Falsified By Our Senses. When The Compass, The Square, And The Rule Are Untrue, All The Calculations Drawn From Them, All The Buildings Erected By Their Measure, Are Of Necessity Also Defective And Out Of Plumb. The Uncertainty Of Our Senses Renders Uncertain Everything That They Produce.

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.

I Love A Friendship That Flatters Itself In The Sharpness And Vigor Of Its Communications.

Eloquence Is An Engine Invented To Manage And Wield At Will The Fierce Democracy, And, Like Medicine To The Sick, Is Only Employed In The Paroxysms Of A Disordered State.

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

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

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

There Is Nothing So Noble And So Right As To Play Our Human Life Well And Fitly, Nor Anything So Difficult To Learn As How To Livethis Life Well And According To Nature.

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.

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

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

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.

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

As Great Enmities Spring From Great Friendships, And Mortal Distempers From Vigorous Health, So Do The Most Surprising And The Wildest Frenzies From The High And Lively Agitations Of Our Souls.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

How Often Our Involuntary Facial Motions Testify To The Thoughts We Were Keeping Secret, And Betray Us To Those Around!

Keeping Secrets

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

To Understand Via The Heart Is Not To Understand.

A Little Of Everything And Nothing Thoroughly, After The French Fashion.

Some, Either From Being Glued To Vice By A Natural Attachment, Or From Long Habit, No Longer Recognize Its Ugliness.

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

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

I Have Seen People Rude By Being Over-polite.

We Are, I Know Not How, Double In Ourselves, So That What We Believe We Disbelieve, And Cannot Rid Ourselves Of What We Condemn.

A Man Must Keep A Little Back Shop Where He Can Be Himself Without Reserve. In Solitude Alone Can He Know True Freedom.

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 Not One Of Us That Would Not Be Worse Than Kings, If So Continually Corrupted As They Are With A Sort Of Vermin Called Flatterers.

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

A Man May By Custom Fortify Himself Against Pain, Shame, And Suchlike Accidents; But As To Death, We Can Experience It But Once, And Are All Apprentices When We Come To It

Whatever Can Be Done Another Day Can Be Done Today.

Wonder Is The Foundation Of All Philosophy, Inquiry The Progress, Ignorance The End.

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

A Strong Memory Is Commonly Coupled With Infirm Judgment.

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

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

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.

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

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

There Is Nothing Useless In Nature; Not Even Uselessness Itself

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

Others Form Man; I Tell Of Him, And Portray A Particular One, Very Ill-formed, Whom I Should Really Make Very Different From Whathe Is If I Had To Fashion Him Over Again. But Now It Is Done.

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

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

A Young Man Ought To Cross His Own Rules, To Awake His Vigor, And To Keep It From Growing Faint And Rusty. And There Is No Course Of Life So Weak And Sottish As That Which Is Carried On By Rule And Discipline.

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

To Make Judgements About Great And Lofty Things, A Soul Of The Same Stature Is Needed; Otherwise We Ascribe To Them That Vice Which Is Our Own.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Extraordinary Things

And If Nobody Reads Me, Shall I Have Wasted My Time, When I Have Beguiled So Many Idle Hours With Such Pleasant And Profitable Reflections?

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

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.

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.

Lawyers And Physicians Are An Ill Provision For Any Country.

A Man Must Become Wise At His Own Expense.

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

Since I Would Rather Make Of Him An Able Man Than A Learned Man, I Would Also Urge That Care Be Taken To Choose A Guide With A Well-made Rather Than A Well-filled Head.

No Spiritual Mind Remains Within Itself; It Is Always Aspiring And Going Beyond Its Own Strength.

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.

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

A Man Must Either Imitate The Vicious Or Hate Them.

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.

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

We Have No Participation In Being, Because All Human Nature Is Ever Midway Between Being Born And Dying, Giving Off Only A Vague Image And Shadow Of Itself, And A Weak And Uncertain Opinion. And If You Chance To Fix Your Thoughts On Trying To Grasp Its Essence, It Would Be Neither More Nor Less Than If Your Tried To Clutch Water.

It Is Not My Deeds That I Write Down, It Is Myself, My Essence.

I, Who Am King Of The Matter I Treat, And Who Owe An Accounting For It To No One, Do Not For All That Believe Myself In All I Write. I Often Hazard Sallies Of My Mind Which I Mistrust.

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.

Disappointment And Feebleness Imprint Upon Us A Cowardly And Valetudinarian Virtue.

All Passions That Suffer Themselves To Be Relished And Digested Are But Moderate.

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

Habit Is A Second Nature.

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.

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

I Have Often Seen People Uncivil By Too Much Civility, And Tiresome In Their Courtesy.

The Strength Of Any Plan Depends On The Time. Circumstances And Things Eternally Shift And Change.

The Beauty Of Stature Is The Only Beauty Of Men.

Socrates, Who Was A Perfect Model In All Great Qualities, ... Hit On A Body And Face So Ugly And So Incongruous With The Beauty Of His Soul, He Who Was So Madly In Love With Beauty.

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

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.

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?

All Of The Days Go Toward Death And The Last One Arrives There.

Learning Is Not To Be Tacked To The Mind, But We Must Fuse And Blend Them Together, Not Merely Giving The Mind A Slight Tincture, But A Thorough And Perfect Dye. And If We Perceive No Evident Change And Improvement, It Would Be Better To Leave It Alone; Learning Is A Dangerous Weapon, And Apt To Wound Its Master If It Be Wielded By A Feeble Hand, And By One Not Well Acquainted With Its Use.

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