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Those Who Make A Practice Of Comparing Human Actions Are Never So Perplexed As When They Try To See Them As A Whole And In The Same Light; For They Commonly Contradict Each Other So Strangely That It Seems Impossible That They Have Come From The Same Shop.

-Michel De Montaigne

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Those Who Make A

Michel De Montaigne

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Those Who Make A Practice Of Comparing Human Actions Are Never So Perplexed As When They Try To See Them As A Whole And In The Same Light; For They Commonly Contradict Each Other So Strangely That It Seems Impossible That They Have Come From The Same Shop.

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Nothing Is So Firmly Believed As What We Least Know.

True Freedom Is To Have Power Over Oneself For Everything.

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

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

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

The Laws Of Conscience, Though We Ascribe Them To Nature, Actually Come From Custom.

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

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

No Man Is Exempt From Saying Silly Things; The Mischief Is To Say Them Deliberately.

The Only Thing Certain Is Nothing Is Certain.

Things Seem Greater By Imagination Than They Are In Effect.

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

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?

He Who Fears He Will Suffer, Already Suffers From His Fear.

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

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

The Beauty Of Stature Is The Only Beauty Of Men.

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

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

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.

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

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

Love Is Like Playing The Piano. First You Must Learn To Play By The Rules, Then You Must Forget The Rules And Play From Your Heart. If I Were Pressed To Say Why I Loved Him, I Feel That My Only Reply Could Be: Because It Was He, Because It Was I.

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

The Soul That Has No Established Aim Loses Itself

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.

And Obstinacy Is The Sister Of Constancy, At Least In Vigour And Stability.

We Must Learn To Endure What We Cannot Avoid. Our Life Is Composed, Like The Harmony Of The World, Of Contrary Things, Also Of Different Tones, Sweet And Harsh, Sharp And Flat, Soft And Loud. If A Musician Liked Only One Kind, What Would He Have To Say?

To Distract Myself From Tiresome Thoughts, I Have Only To Resort To Books; They Easily Draw My Mind To Themselves And Away From Other Things.

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.

... Whoever Believes Anything Esteems That It Is A Work Of Charity To Persuade Another Of It.

Is There Anything So Grave And Serious As An Ass?

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.

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

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

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

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

Report Followeth Not All Goodness, Except Difficulty And Rarity Be Joined Thereto.

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

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.

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

Lend Yourself To Others, But Give Yourself To Yourself.

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.

God Sends The Cold According To The Coat.

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.

Lawyers And Physicians Are An Ill Provision For Any Country.

It Is Far More Probable That Our Senses Should Deceive Us, Than That An Old Woman Should Be Carried Up A Chimney On A Broom Stick; And That It Is Far Less Astonishing That Witnesses Should Lie, Than That Witches Should Perform The Acts That Were Alleged.

Perhaps It Is Not Without Reason That We Attribute Facility In Belief And Conviction To Simplicity And Ignorance; For It Seems To Me I Once Learned That Belief Was Sort Of An Impression Made On Our Mind, And That The Softer It Is The Less Resistant T.

I Must Accommodate My History To The Hour: I May Presently Change, Not Only By Fortune, But Also By Intention.

Every Abridgement Of A Good Book Is A Fool Abridged.

Some Impose Upon The World That They Believe That Which They Do Not; Others, More In Number, Make Themselves Believe That They Believe, Not Being Able To Penetrate Into What It Is To Believe.

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

Those Who Make A Practice Of Comparing Human Actions Are Never So Perplexed As When They Try To See Them As A Whole And In The Same Light; For They Commonly Contradict Each Other So Strangely That It Seems Impossible That They Have Come From The Same Shop.

In His Commerce With Men I Mean Him To Include- And That Principally- Those Who Live Only In The Memory Of Books. By Means Of History He Will Frequent Those Great Souls Of Former Years. If You Want It To Be So, History Can Be A Waste Of Time; It Can Also Be, If You Want It To Be So, A Study Bearing Fruit Beyond Price.

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

Marriage Has, For Its Share, Usefulness, Justice, Honour, And Constancy; A Stale But More Durable Pleasure. Love Is Grounded On Pleasure Alone, And It Is Indeed More Gratifying To The Senses, Keener And More Acute; A Pleasure Stirred And Kept Alive By Difficulties. There Must Be A Sting And A Smart In It. It Ceases To Be Love If It Has No Shafts And No Fire.

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.

I Consider Myself An Average Man, Except In The Fact That I Consider Myself An Average Man.

For There Is No Air That Men So Greedily Draw In, That Diffuses Itself So Soon, And That Penetrates So Deep As That Of License.

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

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.

A Strong Imagination Begetteth Opportunity.

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

This Idea Is More Surely Understood By Interrogation; What Do I Know? Which I Bear As My Motto With The Emblem Of A Pair Of Scales.

Valor Is Stability, Not Of Legs And Arms, But Of Courage And The Soul.

And Therefore, Reader, I Myself Am The Subject Of My Book: It Is Not Reasonable That You Should Employ Your Leisure On A Topic So Frivolous And So Vain. Therefore, Farewell.

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.

Our Skin Is Provided As Adequately As Theirs With Endurance Against The Assaults Of The Weather: Witness So Many Nations Who Have Not Yet Tried The Use Of Any Clothes. Our Ancient Gauls Wore Hardly Any Clothes; Nor Do The Irish, Our Neighbors, Under So Cold A Sky.

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

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

He Who Lives Not To Others, Lives Little To Himself.

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

What Kind Of Truth Is This Which Is True On One Side Of A Mountain And False On The Other?

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

It Is The Part Of Cowardice, Not Of Courage, To Go And Crouch In A Hole Under A Massive Tomb, To Avoid The Blows Of Fortune.

Gentleness And Repose Are Paramount To Everything Else In Woman.

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

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.

Nature Has, Herself, I Fear, Imprinted In Man A Kind Of Instinct To Inhumanity.

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

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.

Why Do People Respect The Package Rather Than The Man?

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.

We Cannot Do Without It, And Yet We Disgrace And Vilify The Same. It May Be Compared To A Cage, The Birds Without Despair To Get In, And Those Within Despair To Get Out.

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.

There Is No Knowledge So Hard To Acquire As The Knowledge Of How To Live This Life Well And Naturally.

One Should Always Have One's Boots On And Be Ready To Leave.

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

For Among Other Things He Had Been Counseled To Bring Me To Love Knowledge And Duty By My Own Choice, Without Forcing My Will, And To Educate My Soul Entirely Through Gentleness And Freedom.

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.

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.

Natural Inclinations Are Assisted And Reinforced By Education, But They Are Hardly Ever Altered Or Overcome.

If Your Doctor Does Not Think It Good For You To Sleep, To Drink Wine, Or To Eat Of A Particular Dish, Do Not Worry; I Will Find You Another Who Will Not Agree With Him.

We Are Nearer Neighbours To Ourselves Than Whiteness To Snow, Or Weight To Stones.

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

Que Sçais-je?" (what Do I Know?)

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

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

If Love And Ambition Should Be In Equal Balance, And Come To Jostle With Equal Force, I Make No Doubt But That The Last Would Win The Prize.

To Call Out For The Hand Of The Enemy Is A Rather Extreme Measure, Yet A Better One, I Think, Than To Remain In Continual Fever Over An Accident That Has No Remedy. But Since All The Precautions That A Man Can Take Are Full Of Uneasiness And Uncertainty, It Is Better To Prepare With Fine Assurance For The Worst That Can Happen, And Derive Some Consolation From The Fact That We Are Not Sure That It Will Happen.

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

In My Opinion, Every Rich Man Is A Miser.

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

The Value Of Life Lies Not In The Length Of Days, But In The Use We Make Of Them... Whether You Find Satisfaction In Life Depends Not On Your Tale Of Years, But On Your Will.

Satisfaction In Life

[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.

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

Men Throw Themselves On Foreign Assistances To Spare Their Own, Which, After All, Are The Only Certain And Sufficient Ones.

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

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

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.

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

Great Authors, When They Write About Causes, Adduce Not Only Those They Think Are True But Also Those They Do Not Believe In, Provided They Have Some Originality And Beauty. They Speak Truly And Usefully Enough If They Speak Ingeniously.

There Is No So Wretched And Coarse A Soul Wherein Some Particular Faculty Is Not Seen To Shine.

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

Cognitive Therapy

Desire And Hope Will Push Us On Toward The Future.

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

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.

I Would Like To Suggest That Our Minds Are Swamped By Too Much Study And By Too Much Matter Just As Plants Are Swamped By Too Much Water Or Lamps By Too Much Oil; That Our Minds, Held Fast And Encumbered By So Many Diverse Preoccupations, May Well Lose The Means Of Struggling Free, Remaining Bowed And Bent Under The Load; Except That It Is Quite Otherwise: The More Our Souls Are Filled, The More They Expand; Examples Drawn From Far-off Times Show, On The Contrary, That Great Soldiers Ad Statesmen Were Also Great Scholars.

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

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

I See Men Ordinarily More Eager To Discover A Reason For Things Than To Find Out Whether The Things Are So.

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

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.

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.

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

A Man Must Either Imitate The Vicious Or Hate Them.

One May Be Humble Out Of Pride.

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

Every Man Has Within Himself The Entire Human Condition

Human Condition

No Man Divulges His Revenue, Or At Least Which Way It Comes In: But Every One Publishes His Acquisitions.

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

If You Want It To Be So, History Can Be A Waste Of Time; It Can Also Be, If You Want It To Be So, A Study Bearing Fruit Beyond Price.

Words Of Wisdom

The Thing In The World I Am Most Afraid Of Is Fear, And With Good Reason; That Passion Alone, In The Trouble Of It, Exceeding All Other Accidents

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

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

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

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.

God Defend Me From Myself.

Intoxication Is Calculated To Put Heart Into The Elderly And Give Them Delight In Dancing.

Books Are A Languid Pleasure.

Age Imprints More Wrinkles A In The Mind, Than It Does In The Face, And Souls Are Never, Or Very Rarely Seen, That In Growing Old Do Not Smell Sour And Musty. Man Moves All Together, Both Towards His Perfection And Decay.

For Truth Itself Does Not Have The Privilege To Be Employed At Any Time And In Every Way; Its Use, Noble As It Is, Has Its Circumscriptions And Limits.

An Honest Man Is Not Accountable For The Vice And Folly Of His Trade, And Therefore Ought Not To Refuse The Exercise Of It. It Is The Custom Of His Country, And There Is Profit In It. We Must Live By The World, And Such As We Find It, So Make Use Of It.

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

Men Are Nothing Until They Are Excited.

Confidence In The Goodness Of Another Is Good Proof Of One's Own Goodness.

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.

The Beautiful Souls Are They That Are Universal, Open, And Ready For All Things.

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.

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

To Understand Via The Heart Is Not To Understand.

Stupidity And Wisdom Meet In The Same Centre Of Sentiment And Resolution, In The Suffering Of Human Accidents.

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

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

Live In The Moment

Past Present Future

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

A Strong Memory Is Commonly Coupled With Infirm Judgment.

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.

In Plain Truth, It Is No Want, But Rather Abundance That Creates Avarice.

Only He Can Judge Of Matters Great And High Whose Soul Is Likewise.

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

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

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 Honor Of The Conquest Is Rated By The Difficulty.

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 Is In Vain That We Get Upon Stilts, For Once On Them, It Is Still With Our Legs That We Must Walk. And On The Highest Throne In The World We Are Still Sitting On Our Own Ass.

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

What We Are Told Of The Inhabitants Of Brazil, That They Never Die But Of Old Age, Is Attributed To The Tranquility And Serenity Of Their Climate; I Rather Attribute It To The Tranquility And Serenity Of Their Souls, Which Are Free From All Passion, Thought, Or Any Absorbing And Unpleasant Labors. Those People Spend Their Lives In An Admirable Simplicity And Ignorance, Without Letters, Without Law, Without King, Without Any Manner Of Religion.

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

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

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

We Endeavor More That Men Should Speak Of Us, Than How And What They Speak, And It Sufficeth Us That Our Name Run In Men's Mouths, In What Manner Soever. It Stemma That To Be Known Is In Some Sort To Have Life And Continuance In Other Men's Keeping.

Wonder Is The Foundation Of All Philosophy; Research, The Progress; Ignorance, The End. There Is, By Heavens, A Strong And Generous Kind Of Ignorance That Yields Nothing, For Honour And Courage, To Knowledge: An Ignorance To Conceive Which Needs No Less Knowledge Than To Conceive Knowledge.

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.

While Our Pulse Beats And We Feel Emotion, Let Us Put Off The Business. Things Will Truly Seem Different To Us When We Have Quieted And Cooled Down. It Is Passion That Is In Command At First, It Is Passion That Speaks, It Is Not We Ourselves.

Habit Is Second Nature.

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

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

No Man Profiteth But By The Loss Of Others.

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

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

In Order Always To Learn Something From Others (which Is The Finest School There Can Be), I Observe In My Travels This Practice: I Always Steer Those With Whom I Talk Back To The Things They Know Best.

Obsession Is The Wellspring Of Genius And Madness.

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

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

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

Fortune, To Show Us Her Power In All Things, And To Abate Our Presumption, Seeing She Could Not Make Fools Wise, Has Made Them Fortunate.

It Is Only Certain That There Is Nothing Certain, And That Nothing Is More Miserable Or More Proud Than Man.

What Enriches Language Is Its Being Handled And Exploited By Beautiful Minds-not So Much By Making Innovations As By Expanding It Through More Vigorous And Varied Applications, By Extending It And Deploying It. It Is Not Words That They Contribute: What They Do Is Enrich Their Words, Deepen Their Meanings And Tie Down Their Usage; They Teach It Unaccustomed Rhythms, Prudently Though And With Ingenuity.

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

He Loves Little Who Loves By Rule.

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

If Ordinary People Complain That I Speak Too Much Of Myself, I Complain That They Do Not Even Think Of Themselves.

A Little Folly Is Desirable In Him That Will Not Be Guilty Of Stupidity.

Vexations May Be Petty, But They Are Vexations Still.

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

Covetousness Is Both The Beginning And The End Of The Devil's Alphabet - The First Vice In Corrupt Nature That Moves, And The Last Which Dies.

My Art And Profession Is To Live.

Experience Teaches That A Strong Memory Is Generally Joined To A Weak Judgment.

No Profession Or Occupation Is More Pleasing Than The Military; A Profession Or Exercise Both Noble In Execution (for The Strongest, Most Generous And Proudest Of All Virtues Is True Valor) And Noble In Its Cause. No Utility Either More Just Or Universal Than The Protection Of The Repose Or Defense Of The Greatness Of One's Country. The Company And Daily Conversation Of So Many Noble, Young And Active Men Cannot But Be Well-pleasing To You.

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