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

-Michel De Montaigne

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The Thing In The

Michel De Montaigne

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

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The Clatter Of Arms Drowns Out The Voice Of Law.

There Is, Nevertheless, A Certain Respect And A General Duty Of Humanity That Ties Us, Not Only To Beasts That Have Life And Sense, But Even To Trees And Plants.

[i]n My Country, When They Would Say A Man Has No Sense, They Say, Such An One Has No Memory; And When I Complain Of The Defect Of Mine, They Do Not Believe Me, And Reprove Me, As Though I Accused Myself For A Fool: Not Discerning The Difference Betwixt Memory And Understanding, Which Is To Make Matters Still Worse For Me. But They Do Me Wrong; For Experience, Rather, Daily Shows Us, On The Contrary, That A Strong Memory Is Commonly Coupled With Infirm Judgment.

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

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.

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

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

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

Nature Has With A Motherly Tenderness Observed This, That The Action She Has Enjoyned Us For Our Necessity Should Be Also Pleasant To Us, And Invites Us To Them, Not Only By Reason, But Also By Appetite: And tis Injustice To Infringe Her Laws.

There Is Nothing On Which Men Are Commonly More Intent Than On Making A Way For Their Opinions.

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

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.

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

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.

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

The Good Opinion Of The Vulgar Is Injurious.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Happiness Involves Working Toward Meaningful Goals.

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

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

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 Want Death To Find Me Planting My Cabbages, But Careless Of Death, And Still More Of My Unfinished Garden.

We Cannot Fail In Following Nature.

Death, They Say, Acquits Us Of All Obligations.

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

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

Every Man Carries The Entire Form Of Human Condition.

Human Condition

A Man Must Either Imitate The Vicious Or Hate Them.

Rash And Incessant Scolding Runs Into Custom And Renders Itself Despised.

There Is No More Expensive Thing Than A Free Gift.

A Good Marriage ... Is A Sweet Association In Life: Full Of Constancy, Trust, And An Infinite Number Of Useful And Solid Services And Mutual Obligations.

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

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.

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

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.

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

There Is A Plague On Man, The Opinion That He Knows Something.

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

The Only Thing Certain Is Nothing Is Certain.

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

To Philosophize Is To Doubt.

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

We Need To Interpret Interpretations More Than To Interpret Things.

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]

Those Sciences Which Govern The Morals Of Mankind, Such As Theology And Philosophy, Make Everything Their Concern: No Activity Is So Private Or So Secret As To Escape Their Attention Or Their Jurisdiction.

Arts And Sciences Are Not Cast In A Mould, But Are Found And Perfected By Degrees, By Often Handling And Polishing.

When We See A Man With Bad Shoes, We Say It Is No Wonder, If He Is A Shoemaker.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I Cruelly Hate Cruelty, Both By Nature And Reason, As The Worst Of All The Vices. But Then I Am So Soft In This That I Cannot Seea Chicken's Neck Wrung Without Distress, And Cannot Bear To Hear The Squealing Of A Hare Between The Teeth Of My Hounds.

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

Things Seem Greater By Imagination Than They Are In Effect.

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

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

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

The Religion Of My Doctor Or My Lawyer Cannot Matter. That Consideration Has Nothing In Common With The Functions Of The Friendship They Owe Me.

Ambition Is Not A Vice Of Little People.

Gentleness And Repose Are Paramount To Everything Else In Woman.

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

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

Is It Reasonable That Even The Arts Should Take Advantage Of And Profit By Our Natural Stupidity And Feebleness Of Mind?

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.

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.

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

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 Has Need Of Tough Ears To Hear Himself Fairly Judged.

In The Examples That I Here Bring In Of What I Have [read], Heard, Done Or Said, I Have Refrained From Daring To Alter Even The Smallest And Most Indifferent Circumstances. My Conscience Falsifies Not An Iota; For My Knowledge I Cannot Answer.

It Is No Hard Matter To Get Children; But After They Are Born, Then Begins The Trouble, Solicitude, And Care Rightly To Train, Principle, And Bring Them Up.

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

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

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

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

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

There Is Indeed A Certain Sense Of Gratification When We Do A Good Deed That Gives Us Inward Satisfaction, And A Generous Pride That Accompanies A Good Conscience…these Testimonies Of A Good Conscience Are Pleasant; And Such A Natural Pleasure Is Very Beneficial To Us; It Is The Only Payment That Can Never Fail. “on Repentance

If Atoms Do, By Chance, Happen To Combine Themselves Into So Many Shapes, Why Have They Never Combined Together To Form A House Or A Slipper? By The Same Token, Why Do We Not Believe That If Innumerable Letters Of The Greek Alphabet Were Poured All Over The Market-place They Would Eventually Happen To Form The Text Of The Iliad?

Oh Senseless Man, Who Cannot Possibly Make A Worm Or A Flea And Yet Will Create Gods By The Dozen!

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.

In Love, 'tis No Other Than Frantic Desire For That Which Flies From Us.

No Doctor Takes Pleasure In The Health Even Of His Friends.

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

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

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.

Courtesy, Like Grace And Beauty, That Which Begets Liking And Inclination To Love One Another At The First Sight, And In The Very Beginning Of Our Acquaintance And Familiarity; And, Consequently, That Which First Opens The Door For Us To Better Ourselves By The Example Of Others, If There Be Anything In The Society Worth Notice

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

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

The Honor Of The Conquest Is Rated By The Difficulty.

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.

Meditation Is A Powerful And Full Study As Can Effectually Taste And Employ Themselves.

I Do Myself A Greater Injury In Lying Than I Do Him Of Whom I Tell A Lie.

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.

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.

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

Who Feareth To Suffer Suffereth Already, Because He Feareth.

To Smell, Though Well, Is To Stink.

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

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.

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

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.

Custom Is A Second Nature, And No Less Powerful.

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.

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

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.

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

Words Of Wisdom

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.

The Pleasure We Hold In Esteem For The Course Of Our Lives Ought To Have A Greater Share Of Our Time Dedicated To It; We Should Refuse No Occasion Nor Omit Any Opportunity Of Drinking, And Always Have It In Our Minds.

Physicians Have This Advantage: The Sun Lights Their Success And The Earth Covers Their Failures.

The Most Certain Sign Of Wisdom Is Cheerfulness.

It Is Indeed The Boundary Of Life, Beyond Which We Are Not To Pass; Which The Law Of Nature Has Pitched For A Limit Not To Be Exceeded.

My Art And Profession Is To Live.

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

As Far As Physicians Go, Chance Is More Valuable Than Knowledge.

Have You Known How To Take Rest? You Have Done More Than He Who Hath Taken Empires And Cities.

Friendship That Possesses The Whole Soul, And There Rules And Sways With An Absolute Sovereignty, Can Admit Of No Rival.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Whatever Can Be Done Another Day Can Be Done Today.

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

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

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

The Thing I Fear Most Is Fear.

The Body Enjoys A Great Share In Our Being, And Has An Eminent Place In It. Its Structure And Composition, Therefore, Are Worthy Of Proper Consideration.

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.

What A Man Hates, He Takes Seriously.

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.

There Is No Greater Enemy To Those Who Would Please Than Expectation.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

When We Have Got It, We Want Something Else.

I Have Gathered A Posy Of Other Mens Flowers And Only The Thread That Bonds Them Is My Own.

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

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.

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

Traveling Through The World Produces A Marvelous Clarity In The Judgment Of Men. We Are All Of Us Confined And Enclosed Within Ourselves, And See No Farther Than The End Of Our Nose. This Great World Is A Mirror Where We Must See Ourselves In Order To Know Ourselves. There Are So Many Different Tempers, So Many Different Points Of View, Judgments, Opinions, Laws And Customs To Teach Us To Judge Wisely On Our Own, And To Teach Our Judgment To Recognize Its Imperfection And Natural Weakness.

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.

It Is An Injustice That An Old, Broken, Half-dead Father Should Enjoy Alone, In A Corner Of His Hearth, Possessions That Would Suffice For The Advancement And Maintenance Of Many Children.

To Philosophize Is To Learn To Die.

Vexations May Be Petty, But They Are Vexations Still.

Nothing Is So Firmly Believed As What We Least Know.

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

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.

Live As Long As You Please, You Will Strike Nothing Off The Time You Will Have To Spend Dead.

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

I Consider It Equal Injustice To Set Our Heart Against Natural Pleasures And To Set Our Heart Too Much On Them. We Should Neither Pursue Them, Nor Flee Them; We Should Accept Them.

The Study Of Books Is A Drowsy And Feeble Exercise Which Does Not Warm You Up.

A Man Must Become Wise At His Own Expense.

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

It Takes Strong Ears Indeed To Hear Ourselves Judged Frankly, And Because There Are Few Who Can Endure Criticism Without Being Stung By It, Those Who Venture To Criticize Us Perform A Remarkable Act Of Friendship. For It Is A Healthy Love That Will Risk Wounding Or Offending In Order To Profer A Benefit.

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.

Life In Itself Is Neither Good Nor Evil, It Is The Place Of Good And Evil, According To What You Make It.

Law Of Attraction

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.

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.

The Least Strained And Most Natural Ways Of The Soul Are The Most Beautiful; The Best Occupations Are The Least Forced.

The Continuous Work Of Our Life Is To Build Death.

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

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.

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

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

I Am Further Of Opinion That It Would Be Better For Us To Have [no Laws] At All Than To Have Them In So Prodigious Numbers As We Have.

One Must Be A Little Foolish If One Does Not Want To Be Even More Stupid.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Not Because Socrates Said So,... I Look Upon All Men As My Compatriots.

It Is Not Reasonable That Art Should Win The Place Of Honor Over Our Great And Powerful Mother Nature. We Have So Overloaded The Beauty And Richness Of Her Works By Our Inventions That We Have Quite Smothered Her.

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.

It Is Not Necessity But Abundance Which Produces Greed.

One May Be Humble Out Of Pride.

Satiety Comes Of Too Frequent Repetition And He Who Will Not Give Himself Leisure To Be Thirsty Can Never Find The True Pleasure Of Drinking

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

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

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