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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.

-Michel De Montaigne

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The Height And Value

Michel De Montaigne

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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.

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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.

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

Words Of Wisdom

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

Peoples Nurtured On Freedom And Self-government Judge Any Other Form Of Polity To Be Deformed And Unnatural. Those Who Are Used To Monarchy Do The Same .

I Would Rather Be An Expert On Me Than On Cicero

A Man Must Become Wise At His Own Expense.

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

To Philosophize Is To Learn To Die.

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.

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.

Virtue Can Have Naught To Do With Ease. . . . It Craves A Steep And Thorny Path.

How Many Worthy Men Have We Known To Survive Their Own Reputation, Who Have Seen And Suffered The Honor And Glory Most Justly Acquired In Their Youth, Extinguished In Their Own Presence?

The Greatest Thing In The World Is To Know How To Belong To Oneself.

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.

The Only Good Histories Are Those Written By Those Who Had Command In The Events They Describe.

My Art And Profession Is To Live.

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

Cowardice Is The Mother Of Cruelty.

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

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?

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 Honor Of The Conquest Is Rated By The Difficulty.

Lend Yourself To Others, But Give Yourself To Yourself.

What Fear Has Once Made Me Will, I Am Bound Still To Will When Without Fear.

The Perpetual Work Of Your Life Is But To Lay The Foundation Of Death.

Health Is A Precious Thing, And The Only One, In Truth, Meriting That A Man Should Lay Out Not Only His Time, Sweat, Labor And Goods, But Also Life Itself To Obtain It.

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.

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

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

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

The First Distinction Among Men, And The First Consideration That Gave One Precedence Over Another, Was Doubtless The Advantage Of Beauty.

It Costs An Unreasonable Woman No More To Pass Over One Reason Than Another; They Cherish Themselves Most Where They Are Most Wrong.

I Want To Be Seen Here In My Simple, Natural, Ordinary Fashion, Without Straining Or Artifice; For It Is Myself That I Portray... I Am Myself The Matter Of My Book.

How Many We Know Who Have Fled The Sweetness Of A Tranquil Life In Their Homes, Among The Friends, To Seek The Horror Of Uninhabitable Deserts; Who Have Flung Themselves Into Humiliation, Degradation, And The Contempt Of The World, And Have Enjoyed These And Even Sought Them Out.

Vexations May Be Petty, But They Are Vexations Still.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

No Wind Favors He Who Has No Destined Port.

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

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

The Great And Glorious Masterpiece Of Humanity Is To Know How To Live With A Purpose.

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

He That Is A Friend To Himself, Know; He Is A Friend To All.

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.

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.

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

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.

I Set Forth A Humble And Inglorious Life; That Does Not Matter. You Can Tie Up All Moral Philosophy With A Common And Private Life Just As Well As With A Life Of Richer Stuff. Each Man Bears The Entire Form Of Man's Estate.

But As Nature Is The Best Guide, Teaching Must Be The Development Of Natural Inclinations, For Which Purpose The Teacher Must Watch His Pupil And Listen To Him, Not Continually Bawl Words Into His Ears As If Pouring Water Into A Funnel. Good Teaching Will Come From A Mind Well Made Rather Than Well Filled.

It Is Much More Easy To Accuse The One Sex Than To Excuse The Other.

It Is A Rare Life That Remains Orderly Even In Private.

I Had Rather Fashion My Mind Than Furnish It.

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

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

Lost Friendship

The Thing In The World I Am Most Afraid Of Is Fear.

I Find No Quality So Easy For A Man To Counterfeit As Devotion, Though His Life And Manner Are Not Conformable To It; The Essence Of It Is Abstruse And Occult, But The Appearances Easy And Showy.

I Have Seen People Rude By Being Over-polite.

It Is Very Easy To Accuse A Government Of Imperfection, For All Mortal Things Are Full Of It.

I Look Upon The Too Good Opinion That Man Has Of Himself, As The Nursing Mother Of All False Opinions, Both Public And Private.

Like The Watermen Who Advance Forward While They Look Backward.

A Lady Could Not Boast Of Her Chastity Who Was Never Tempted.

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.

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.

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.

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

If My Mind Could Gain A Firm Footing, I Would Not Make Essays, I Would Make Decisions; But It Is Always In Apprenticeship And On Trial.

I Know That The Arms Of Friendship Are Long Enough To Reach From The One End Of The World To The Other

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

Malice Sucks Up The Greatest Part Of Its Own Venom, And Poisons Itself.

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

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 Listen With Attention To The Judgment Of All Men; But So Far As I Can Remember, I Have Followed None But My Own.

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

We Must Reserve A Back Shop All Our Own Entirely Free, In Which To Establish Our Real Liberty And Our Principal Retreat And Solitude.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

~the Value Of Life Lies Not In The Length Of Days, But In The Use We Make Of Them ~

Satisfaction In Life

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.

Since Philosophy Is The Art Which Teaches Us How To Live, And Since Children Need To Learn It As Much As We Do At Other Ages, Why Do We Not Instruct Them In It? .. But In Truth I Know Nothing About The Philosophy Of Education Except This: That The Greatest And The Most Important Difficulty Known To Human Learning Seems To Lie In That Area Which Treats How To Bring Up Children And How To Educate Them.

Que Sçais-je?" (what Do I Know?)

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

The Vulgar And Common Esteem Is Seldom Happy In Hitting Right; And I Am Much Mistaken If, Amongst The Writings Of My Time, The Worst Are Not Those Which Have Most Gained The Popular Applause.

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.

And Truly Philosophy Is But Sophisticated Poetry. Whence Do Those Ancient Writers Derive All Their Authority But From The Poets?

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

I Speak The Truth, Not My Fill Of It, But As Much As I Dare Speak; And I Dare To Do So A Little More As I Grow Old.

Habit Is Second Nature.

Our Zeal Works Wonders, Whenever It Supports Our Inclination Toward Hatred, Cruelty, Ambition.

What Harm Cause Not Those Huge Draughts Or Pictures Which Wanton Youth With Chalk Or Coals Draw In Each Passage, Wall Or Stairs Of Our Great Houses, Whence A Cruel Contempt Of Our Natural Store Is Bred In Them?

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.

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

We Do Not Correct The Man We Hang; We Correct Others By Him.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Custom Is A Second Nature, And No Less Powerful.

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

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

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.

Whatever Is Enforced By Command Is More Imputed To Him Who Exacts Than To Him Who Performs.

Who Is It That Does Not Voluntarily Exchange His Health, His Repose, And His Very Life For Reputation And Glory? The Most Useless, Frivolous, And False Coin That Passes Current Among Us.

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

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.

I Want Death To Find Me Planting My Cabbages.

Silence And Modesty Are Very Valuable Qualities In Conversation.

Of The Opinions Of Philosophy I Most Gladly Embrace Those That Are Most Solid, That Is To Say, Most Human And Most Our Own; My Opinions, In Conformity With My Conduct, Are Low And Humble.

Marriage Can Be Compared To A Cage: Birds Outside It Despair To Enter, And Birds Within, To Escape.

All The Opinions In The World Point Out That Pleasure Is Our Aim.

True Freedom Is To Have Power Over Oneself For Everything.

A Straight Oar Looks Bent In The Water. It Matters Not Merely That We See A Thing, But How We See It.

When A Roman Was Returning From A Trip, He Used To Send Someone Ahead To Let His Wife Know, So As Not To Surprise Her In The Act.

It Takes So Much To Be A King That He Exists Only As Such. That Extraneous Glare That Surrounds Him Hides Him And Conceals Him From Us; Our Sight Breaks And Is Dissipated By It Being Filled And Arrested By This Strong Light.

Time Steals Away Without Any Inconvenience.

To Begin Depriving Death Of Its Greatest Advantage Over Us, Let Us Adopt A Way Clean Contrary To That Common One; Let Us Deprive Death Of Its Strangeness, Let Us Frequent It, Let Us Get Used To It; Let Us Have Nothing More Often In Mind Than Death... 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.

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

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

Speech Belongs Half To The Speaker, Half To The Listener. The Latter Must Prepare To Receive It According To The Motion It Takes.

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

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.

Necessity Is A Violent School-mistress.

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.

Authors Communicate With The People By Some Special Extrinsic Mark; I Am The First To Do So By My Entire Being, As Michel De Montaigne.

How Many Valiant Men We Have Seen To Survive Their Own Reputation!

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.

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

Nature Has Made Us A Present Of A Broad Capacity For Entertaining Ourselves Apart, And Often Calls Us To Do So, To Teach Us That We Owe Ourselves In Part To Society, But In The Best Part To Ourselves.

A Learned Man Is Not Learned In All Things; But A Sufficient Man Is Sufficient Throughout, Even To Ignorance Itself.

It Is Equally Pointless To Weep Because We Won't Be Alive A Hundred Years From Now As That We Were Not Here A Hundred Years Ago.

Judgement Holds In Me A Magisterial Seat, At Least It Carefully Tries To. It Lets My Feelings Go Their Way, Both Hatred And Friendship, Even The Friendship I Bear Myself, Without Being Changed And Corrupted By Them.

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.

When We Have Got It, We Want Something Else.

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.

A Strong Imagination Begetteth Opportunity.

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 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.

Of All Our Infirmities, The Most Savage Is To Despise Our Being.

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

Dreams Are Faithful Interpreters Of Our Inclinations; But There Is Art Required To Sort And Understand Them.

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 Most Certain Sign Of Wisdom Is Cheerfulness.

Obstinacy And Dogmatism Are The Surest Signs Of Stupidity. Is There Anything More Confident, Resolute, Disdainful, Grave And Serious Than An Ass?

We Must Learn To Suffer What We Cannot Evade.

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.

Oh, A Friend! How True Is That Old Saying, That The Enjoyment Of One Is Sweeter And More Necessary Than That Of The Elements Of Water And Fire!

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.

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

Is There A Polity Better Ordered, The Offices Better Distributed, And More Inviolably Observed And Maintained, Than That Of Bees?

Behold The Hands, How They Promise, Conjure, Appeal, Menace, Pray, Supplicate, Refuse, Beckon, Interrogate, Admire, Confess, Cringe, Instruct, Command, Mock And What Not Besides, With A Variation And Multiplication Of Variation Which Makes The Tongue Envious.

I Seek In Books Only To Give Myself Pleasure By Honest Amusement; Or If I Study, I Seek Only The Learning That Treats Of The Knowledge Of Myself And Instructs Me In How To Die Well And Live Well.

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.

The Diversity Of Physical Arguments And Opinions Embraces All Sorts Of Methods.

The Good Opinion Of The Vulgar Is Injurious.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Everyone Calls Barbarity What He Is Not Accustomed To.

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

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

Live In The Moment

Past Present Future

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

We Seem Ambitious God's Whole Work To Undo. ...with New Diseases On Ourselves We War, And With New Physic, A Worse Engine Far.

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.

It Is Putting A Very High Price On One's Conjectures To Have Someone Roasted Alive On Their Account.

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

If My Intentions Were Not To Be Read In My Eyes And Voice, I Should Not Have Survived So Long Without Quarrels And Without Harm, Seeing The Indiscreet Freedom With Which I Say, Right Or Wrong, Whatever Comes Into My Head.

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.

Now There Cannot Be First Principles For Men, Unless The Divinity Has Revealed Them; All The Rest--beginning, Middle, And End--isnothing But Dreams And Smoke.

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

Keeping Secrets

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

There Is Nothing Useless In Nature; Not Even Uselessness Itself

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.

I Moreover Affirm That Our Wisdom Itself, And Wisest Consultations, For The Most Part Commit Themselves To The Conduct Of Chance.

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

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.

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

Stubborn And Ardent Clinging To One's Opinion Is The Best Proof Of Stupidity.

To Honor Him Whom We Have Made Is Far From Honoring Him That Hath Made Us.

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.

To Smell, Though Well, Is To Stink.

Pythagoras Used To Say That Life Resembles The Olympic Games: A Few People Strain Their Muscles To Carry Off A Prize; Others Bring Trinkets To Sell To The Crowd For Gain; And Some There Are, And Not The Worst, Who Seek No Other Profit Than To Look At The Show And See How And Why Everything Is Done; Spectators Of The Life Of Other People In Order To Judge And Regulate Their Own.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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