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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.

-Michel De Montaigne

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To Begin Depriving Death

Michel De Montaigne

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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.

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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.

Meditation Is A Rich And Powerful Method Of Study For Anyone Who Knows How To Examine His Mind.

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

I Seek In The Reading Of Books, Only To Please Myself, By An Honest Diversion.

Such As Are In Immediate Fear Of A Losing Their Estates, Of Banishment, Or Of Slavery, Live In Perpetual Anguish, And Lose All Appetite And Repose; Whereas Such As Are Actually Poor, Slaves, Or Exiles, Ofttimes Live As Merrily As Other Folk.

Que Sçais-je?" (what Do I Know?)

Whatever Can Be Done Another Day Can Be Done Today.

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

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

Lost Friendship

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

A Wise Man Never Loses Anything, If He Has Himself.

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.

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.

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

It Is Commonly Seene By Experience, That Excellent Memories Do Rather Accompany Weake Judgements.

When I Play With My Cat, Who Knows Whether I Do Not Make Her More Sport Than She Makes Me?

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

Adrian, The Emperor, Exclaimed Incessantly, When Dying, "that The Crowd Of Physicians Had Killed Him."

We Commend A Horse For His Strength, And Sureness Of Foot, And Not For His Rich Caparisons; A Greyhound For His Share Of Heels, Not For His Fine Collar; A Hawk For Her Wing, Not For Her Jesses And Bells. Why, In Like Manner, Do We Not Value A Man For What Is Properly His Own? He Has A Great Train, A Beautiful Palace, So Much Credit, So Many Thousand Pounds A Year, And All These Are About Him, But Not In Him.

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

Ambition Is Not A Vice Of Little People.

To Understand Via The Heart Is Not To Understand.

Since We Cannot Match It Let Us Take Our Revenge By Abusing It.

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.

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

Whether The Events In Our Life Are Good Or Bad, Greatly Depends On The Way We Perceive Them.

Law Of Attraction

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

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

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

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.

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

Wisdom Has Its Excesses, And Has No Less Need Of Moderation Than Folly.

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

I Have Ever Loved To Repose Myself, Whether Sitting Or Lying, With My Heels As High Or Higher Than My Head.

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

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

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?

There Are Few Things On Which We Can Pass A Sincere Judgement, Because There Are Few Things In Which We Have Not, In One Way Or Another, A Particular Interest.

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?

God Defend Me From Myself.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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!

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

Diogenes Was Asked What Wine He Liked Best; And He Answered As I Would Have Done When He Said, "somebody Else's".

Don't Be Afraid To Say What You Are Not Afraid To Think

Indeed, There Is No Such Thing As An Altogether Ugly Woman — Or Altogether Beautiful.

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

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.

Each Man Calls Barbarism Whatever Is Not His Own Practice; For Indeed It Seems We Have No Other Test Of Truth And Reason Than The Example And Pattern Of The Opinions And Customs Of The Country We Live In

Ambition Sufficiently Plagues Her Proselytes, By Keeping Themselves Always In Show, Like The Statue Of A Public Place.

Men Are Most Apt To Believe What They Least Understand.

Libertarian Party

A Man Must Either Imitate The Vicious Or Hate Them.

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

As Soon As Women Become Ours We Are No Longer Theirs.

This Notion [skepticism] Is More Clearly Understood By Asking "what Do I Know?"

We Should Rather Examine, Who Is Better Learned, Than Who Is More Learned.

There Is The Name And The Thing; The Name Is A Sound Which Sets A Mark On And Denotes The Thing. The Name Is No Part Of The Thing Nor Of The Substance; It Is An Extraneous Piece Added To The Thing, And Outside Of It.

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

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

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

Few Men Have Been Admired Of Their Familiars.

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

If There Is Such A Thing As A Good Marriage, It Is Because It Resembles Friendship Rather Than Love.

.. Since It Was True That Study, Even When Done Properly, Can Only Teach Us What Wisdom, Right Conduct And Determination Consist In, They Wanted To Put Their Children Directly In Touch With Actual Cases, Teaching Them Not By Hearsay But By Actively Assaying Them, Vigorously Molding And Forming Them Not Merely By Word And Precept But Chiefly By Deeds And Examples, So That Wisdom Should Not Be Something Which The Soul Knows But The Soul's Very Essence And Temperament, Not Something Acquired But A Natural Property.

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.

'as A Man Who Knows How To Make His Education Into A Rule Of Life Not A Means Of Showing Off; Who Can Control Himself And Obey His Own Principles.' The True Mirror Of Our Discourse Is The Course Of Our Lives.

In True Friendship, In Which I Am Expert, I Give Myself To My Friend More Than I Draw Him To Me. I Not Only Like Doing Him Good Better Than Having Him Do Me Good, But Also Would Rather Have Him Do Good To Himself Than To Me; He Does Me Most Good When He Does Himself Good.

In Truth, The Care And Expense Of Our Fathers Aims Only At Furnishing Our Heads With Knowledge; Of Judgement And Virtue, Little News.

Every Man Carries The Entire Form Of Human Condition.

Human Condition

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

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

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.

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

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

The Receipts Of Cookery Are Swelled To A Volume, But A Good Stomach Excels Them All; To Which Nothing Contributes More Than Industry And Temperance.

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.

We Should Be Similarly Wary Of Accepting Common Opinions; We Should Judge Them By The Ways Of Reason Not By Popular Vote.

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

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

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

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.

I Care Not So Much What I Am To Others As What I Am To Myself. I Will Be Rich By Myself, And Not By Borrowing.

The Share We Have In The Knowledge Of Truth, Such As It Is, Has Not Been Acquired By Our Own Powers. God Has Taught Ushis Wonderful Secrets; Our Faith Is Not Of Our Acquiring, It Is Purely The Gift Of Another's Bounty.

Even From Their Infancy We Frame Them To The Sports Of Love: Their Instruction, Behavior, Attire, Grace, Learning And All Their Words Azimuth Only At Love, Respects Only Affection. Their Nurses And Their Keepers Imprint No Other Thing In Them.

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

Hath God Obliged Himself Not To Exceed The Bounds Of Our Knowledge?

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

The Most Regular And Most Perfect Soul In The World Has But Too Much To Do To Keep Itself Upright From Being Overthrown By Its Own Weakness.

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.

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

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

Our Wisdom And Deliberation For The Most Part Follow The Lead Of Chance.

Man Is Certainly Crazy. He Could Not Make A Mite, And He Makes Gods By The Dozen.

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.

Tis The Taste Of Effeminacy That Disrelishes Ordinary And Accustomed Things.

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

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

My Business Is Only To Keep Myself In Motion, Whilst Motion Pleases Me; I Only Walk For The Walk's Sake.

My Appetite Comes To Me While Eating.

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

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.

A Man Should Ever, As Much As In Him Lieth, Be Ready Booted To Take His Journey, And Above All Things Look He Have Then Nothing To Do But With Himself.

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.

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

Keeping Secrets

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.

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.

Human Understanding Is Marvellously Enlightened By Daily Conversation With Men, For We Are, Otherwise, Compressed And Heaped Up In Ourselves, And Have Our Sight Limited To The Length Of Our Own Noses.

I Must Use These Great Men's Virtues As A Cloak For My Weakness.

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

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

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

Obsession Is The Wellspring Of Genius And Madness.

"ultimately The Bond Of All Companionship, Whether In Marriage Or In Friendship, Is Conversation." -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.

The Smallest Annoyances, Disturb Us The Most.

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

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

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

I Quote Others In Order To Better Express Myself.

The Thing I Fear Most Is Fear.

We Are Christians By The Same Title As We Are Natives Of Perigord Or Germany.

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

Men Do Not Know The Natural Infirmity Of Their Mind: It Does Nothing But Ferret And Quest, And Keeps Incessantly Whirling Around, Building Up And Becoming Entangled In Its Own Work, Like Silkworms, And Is Suffocated In It. A Mouse In A Pitch Barrel...thinks It Notices From A Distance Some Sort Of Glimmer Of Imaginary Light And Truth; But While Running Toward It, It Is Crossed By So Many Difficulties And Obstacles, And Diverted By So Many New Quests, That It Strays From The Road, Bewildered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

We Must Learn To Suffer What We Cannot Evade.

Once Conform, Once Do What Others Do Because They Do It, And A Kind Of Lethargy Steals Over All The Finer Senses Of The Soul.

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

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.

No Two Men Ever Judged Alike Of The Same Thing, And It Is Impossible To Find Two Opinions Exactly Similar, Not Only In Different Men But In The Same Men At Different Times.

Other People Do Not See You At All, But Guess At You By Uncertain Conjectures.

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

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

Truly Man Is A Marvelously Vain, Diverse, And Undulating Object. It Is Hard To Found Any Constant And Uniform Judgment On Him.

The Advantage Of Living Is Not Measured By Length, But By Use; Some Men Have Lived Long, And Lived Little; Attend To It While You Are In It. It Lies In Your Will, Not In The Number Of Years, For You To Have Lived Enough.

We Have More Poets Than Judges And Interpreters Of Poetry. It Is Easier To Write An Indifferent Poem Than To Understand A Good One. There Is, Indeed, A Certain Low And Moderate Sort Of Poetry, That A Man May Well Enough Judge By Certain Rules Of Art; But The True, Supreme, And Divine Poesy Is Equally Above All Rules And Reason. And Whoever Discerns The Beauty Of It With The Most Assured And Most Steady Sight Sees No More Than The Quick Reflection Of A Flash Of Lightning.

The General Order Of Things That Takes Care Of Fleas And Moles Also Takes Care Of Men, If They Will Have The Same Patience That Fleas And Moles Have, To Leave It To Itself.

The Lack Of Wealth Is Easily Repaired But The Poverty Of The Soul Is Irreplaceable.

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

Men Are Tormented By The Opinions They Have Of Things, And Not The Things Themselves.

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

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

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

I Turn My Gaze Inward. I Fix It There And Keep It Busy. I Look Inside Myself. I Continually Observe Myself.

Books Are A Languid Pleasure.

Fame And Tranquility Can Never Be Bedfellows.

A Man Must Learn To Endure Patiently What He Cannot Avoid Conveniently.

I Say That Male And Female Are Cast In The Same Mold; Except For Education And Habits, The Difference Is Not Great.

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

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.

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

To Compose Our Character Is Our Duty, Not To Compose Books, And To Win, Not Battles And Provinces, But Order And Tranquillity In Our Conduct.

The Secret Counsels Of Princes Are A Troublesome Burden To Such As Have Only To Execute Them.

The Way Of The World Is To Make Laws, But Follow Custom.

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

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

True Freedom Is To Have Power Over Oneself For Everything.

I Will Follow The Right Side Even To The Fire, But Excluding The Fire If I Can.

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.

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

If Health And A Fair Day Smile Upon Me, I Am A Very Good Fellow; If A Corn Trouble My Toe, I Am Sullen, Out Of Humor, And Inaccessible.

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

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

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.

There Is No More Expensive Thing Than A Free Gift.

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

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

Tortures Are A Dangerous Invention, And Seem To Be A Test Of Endurance Rather Than Of Truth.

Learned We May Be With Another Man's Learning: We Can Only Be Wise With Wisdom Of Our Own.

We Cannot Fail In Following Nature.

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

Greatness Of Soul Consists Not So Much In Soaring High And In Pressing Forward, As In Knowing How To Adapt And Limit Oneself.

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.

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.

I Had Rather Complain Of Ill-fortune Than Be Ashamed Of Victory.

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

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

A Well-bred Man Is Always Sociable And Complaisant.

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 .

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

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

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