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To Divert Myself From A Troublesome Fancy, It Is But To Run To My Books; They Presently Fix Me To Them, And Drive The Other Out Of My Thoughts, And Do Not Mutiny To See That I Have Only Recourse To Them For Want Of Other More, Real, Natural, And Lively Conveniences; They Always Receive Me With The Same Kindness.

-Michel De Montaigne

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To Divert Myself From

Michel De Montaigne

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To Divert Myself From A Troublesome Fancy, It Is But To Run To My Books; They Presently Fix Me To Them, And Drive The Other Out Of My Thoughts, And Do Not Mutiny To See That I Have Only Recourse To Them For Want Of Other More, Real, Natural, And Lively Conveniences; They Always Receive Me With The Same Kindness.

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We Hold Death, Poverty, And Grief For Our Principal Enemies; But This Death, Which Some Repute The Most Dreadful Of All Dreadful Things, Who Does Not Know That Others Call It The Only Secure Harbor From The Storm And Tempests Of Life, The Sovereign Good Of Nature, The Sole Support Of Liberty, And The Common And Sudden Remedy Of All Evils?

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.

We Owe Subjection And Obedience To All Our Kings, Whether Good Or Bad, Alike, For That Has Respect Unto Their Office; But As To Esteem And Affection, These Are Only Due To Their Virtue.

The Memory Represents To Us Not What We Choose But What It Pleases.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Live In The Moment

Past Present Future

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.

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

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.

It Is Not Death, It Is Dying That Alarms Me.

Death And Dying

All I Say Is By Way Of Discourse, And Nothing By Way Of Advice. I Should Not Speak So Boldly If It Were My Due To Be Believed.

Not Being Able To Govern Events, I Govern Myself.

Law Of Attraction

Since We Cannot Attain Unto It, Let Us Revenge Ourselves By Railing At It; And Yet It Is Not Absolutely Railing Against Anything, To Proclaim Its Defects, Because They Are In All Things To Be Found, How Beautiful Or How Much To Be Coveted Soever.

The Most Fruitful And Natural Exercise For Our Minds Is, In My Opinion, Conversation.

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

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?

Death Pays All Debts.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Words Of Wisdom

As For Me, Then, I Love Life And Cultivate It Just As God Has Been Pleased To Grant It To Us.

Whatever Can Be Done Another Day Can Be Done Today.

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

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

Lend Yourself To Others, But Give Yourself To Yourself.

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

The First Lessons With Which We Should Irrigate His Mind Should Be Those Which Teach Him To Know Himself, And To Know How To Die ... And To Live.

Gentleness And Repose Are Paramount To Everything Else In Woman.

There Is No Wish More Natural Than The Wish To Know.

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

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.

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.

Women Are More Susceptible To Pain Than To Pleasure.

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.

Honesty Is A Question Of Right And Wrong, Not A Matter Of Policy

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.

Friendship Is The Highest Degree Of Perfection In Society.

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

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.

In Plain Truth, Lying Is An Accursed Vice. We Are Not Men, Nor Have Any Other Tie Upon Another, But By Our Word.

Let Us Not Be Ashamed To Speak What We Shame Not To Think.

People Of Our Time Are So Formed For Agitation And Ostentation That Goodness, Moderation, Equability, Constancy, And Such Quiet And Obscure Qualities Are No Longer Felt.

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

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

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

There Is Some Shadow Of Delight And Delicacy Which Smiles Upon And Flatters Us Even In The Very Lap Of Melancholy.

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

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 .

It Would Be Better To Have No Laws At All, Than To Have Too Many.

There Are As Many And Innumerable Degrees Of Wit, As There Are Cubits Between This And Heaven.

The Honor We Receive From Those That Fear Us, Is Not Honor; Those Respects Are Paid To Royalty And Not To Me.

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.

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

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

The Bees Pillage The Flowers Here And There But They Make Honey Of Them Which Is All Their Own; It Is No Longer Thyme Or Marjolaine: So The Pieces Borrowed From Others He Will Transform And Mix Up Into A Work All His Own.

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

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.

And Not To Serve For A Table-talk.

And To Bring In A New Word By The Head And Shoulders, They Leave Out The Old One.

The World Is But A Perennial Movement. All Things In It Are In Constant Motion-the Earth, The Rocks Of The Caucasus, The Pyramids Of Egypt-both With The Common Motion And With Their Own.

Men ... Are Not Agreed About Any One Thing, Not Even That Heaven Is Over Our Heads.

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

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.

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

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 Mould

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.

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

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

There Is No Passion That So Much Transports Men From Their Right Judgments As Anger. No One Would Demur Upon Punishing A Judge With Death Who Should Condemn A Criminal Upon The Account Of His Own Choler; Why Then Should Fathers And Pedants Be Any More Allowed To Whip And Chastise Children In Their Anger? It Is Then No Longer Correction Bat Revenge. Chastisement Is Instead Of Physic To Children; And Should We Suffer A Physician Who Should Be Animated Against And Enraged At His Patient?

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

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

To Philosophize Is Nothing Else Than To Prepare Oneself For Death.

Oh, What A Valiant Faculty Is Hope.

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

A Man Should Keep For Himself A Little Back Shop, All His Own, Quite Unadulterated, In Which He Establishes His True Freedom And Chief Place Of Seclusion And Solitude.

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

For All Parts Of The Body That We See Fit To Expose To The Wind And Air Are Found Fit To Endure It: Face, Feet, Hands, Legs, Shoulders, Head, According As Custom Invites Us. For If There Is A Part Of Us That Is Tender And That Seems As Though It Should Fear The Cold, It Should Be The Stomach, Where Digestion Takes Place; Our Fathers Left It Uncovered, And Our Ladies, Soft And Delicate As They Are, Sometimes Go Half Bare Down To The Navel.

A Wise Man Loses Nothing, If He But Save Himself.

An Untempted Woman Cannot Boast Of Her Chastity.

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

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.

Lawyers And Physicians Are An Ill Provision For Any Country.

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

We Do Not Marry For Ourselves, Whatever We Say; We Marry Just As Much Or More For Our Posterity, For Our Family. The Practice And Benefit Of Marriage Concerns Our Race Very Far Beyond Us.

It Is A Sign Of Contraction Of The Mind When It Is Content, Or Of Weariness.

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 Most Unhappy And Frail Creatures Are Men And Yet They Are The Proudest.

It Is Not A Mind, It Is Not A Body That We Educate, But It Is A Man, And We Must Not Make Two Parts Of Him.

Why Do People Respect The Package Rather Than The Man?

I Admire The Assurance And Confidence Everyone Has In Himself, Whereas There Is Hardly Anything I Am Sure I Know Or That I Dare Give My Word I Can Do.

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

Life Itself Is Neither A Good Nor An Evil: Life Is Where Good Or Evil Find A Place, Depending On How You Make It For Them.

Words Of Wisdom

My Home...it Is My Retreat And Resting Place From Wars, I Try To Keep This Corner As A Haven Against The Tempest Outside, As I Do Another Corner In My Soul.

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

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.

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.

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.

My Appetite Comes To Me While Eating.

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.

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.

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.

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

All We Do Is To Look After The Opinions And Learning Of Others: We Ought To Make Them Our Own.

I Do Not Understand; I Pause; I Examine.

It Is The Mind That Maketh Good Or Ill, That Maketh Wretch Or Happy, Rich Or Poor.

The Most Universal Quality Is Diversity.

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

Not Only Does The Wind Of Accidents Stir Me According To Its Blowing, But I Am Also Stirred And Troubled By The Instability Of My Attitude.

Those That Will Combat Use And Custom By The Strict Rules Of Grammar Do But Jest

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.

If A Man Should Importune Me To Give A Reason Why I Loved Him, I Find It Could No Otherwise Be Expressed, Than By Making Answer: Because It Was He, Because It Was I.

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

We Cannot Fail In Following Nature.

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

Petty Vexations May At Times Be Petty, But Still They Are Vexations. The Smallest And Most Inconsiderable Annoyances Are The Most Piercing. As Small Letters Weary The Eye Most, So The Smallest Affairs Disturb Us Most.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

I Do Not Know Whether I Would Not Like Much Better To Have Produced One Perfectly Formed Child By Intercourse With The Muses Than By Intercourse With My Wife.

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

The Beauty Of Stature Is The Only Beauty Of Men.

Nothing Prints More Lively In Our Minds Than Something We Wish To Forget.

We Seek And Offer Ourselves To Be Gulled.

A Well-bred Man Is Always Sociable And Complaisant.

Obsession Is The Wellspring Of Genius And Madness.

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?

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

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

A Good Marriage (if Any There Be) Refuses The Conditions Of Love And Endeavors To Present Those Of Amity.

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.

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

It Is A Thorny Undertaking, And More So Than It Seems, To Follow A Movement So Wandering As That Of Our Mind, To Penetrate The Opaque Depths Of Its Innermost Folds, To Pick Out And Immobilize The Innumerable Flutterings That Agitate It.

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.

There Is A Certain Consideration, And A General Duty Of Humanity, That Binds Us Not Only To The Animals, Which Have Life And Feeling, But Even To The Trees And Plants. We Owe Justice To People, And Kindness And Benevolence To All Other Creatures Who May Be Susceptible Of It. There Is Some Intercourse Between Them And Us, And Some Mutual Obligation.

Is It Not Enough To Make Me Come Back To Life Out Of Spite, To Have Someone Who Spat In My Face While I Existed Come And Rub My Feet When I Am Beginning To Exist No Longer?

Glory Consists Of Two Parts: The One In Setting Too Great A Value Upon Ourselves, And The Other In Setting Too Little A Value Upon Others.

Books Are A Languid Pleasure.

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

The Smallest Annoyances, Disturb Us The Most.

No Pleasure Has Any Savor For Me Without Communication.

Without Communication

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.

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.

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

Every Man Bears The Whole Stamp Of The Human Condition.

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

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.

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

I Had Rather Fashion My Mind Than Furnish It.

I Have Seen Books Made Of Things Neither Studied Nor Ever Understood ... The Author Contenting Himself For His Own Part, To Have Cast The Plot And Projected The Design Of It, And By His Industry To Have Bound Up The Fagot Of Unknown Provisions; At Least The Ink And Paper His Own. This May Be Said To Be A Buying Or Borrowing, And Not A Making Or Compiling Of A Book.

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.

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

To How Many Blockheads Of My Time Has A Cold And Taciturn Demeanor Procured The Credit Of Prudence And Capacity!

Love To His Soul Gave Eyes; He Knew Things Are Not As They Seem. The Dream Is His Real Life; The World Around Him Is The Dream.

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

You Have Your Face Bare; I Am All Face.

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.

Off I Go, Rummaging About In Books For Sayings Which Please Me.

The Judgment Is An Utensil Proper For All Subjects, And Will Have An Oar In Everything.

Everyone Calls Barbarity What He Is Not Accustomed To.

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

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.

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.

Any Time And Any Place Can Be Used To Study: His Room, A Garden, Is Table, His Bed; When Alone Or In Company; Morning And Evening. His Chief Study Will Be Philosophy, That Former Of Good Judgement And Character Who Is Privileged To Be Concerned With Everything.

O Human Creature,you Are The Investigator Without Knowledge, The Magistrate Without Jurisdiction, And All In All, The Fool Of The Farce.

Desire And Hope Will Push Us On Toward The Future.

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

Aesop, That Great Man, Saw His Master Making Water As He Walked. "what!" He Said, "must We Void Ourselves As We Run?" Use Our Timeas Best We May, Yet A Great Part Of It Will Still Be Idly And Ill Spent.

.. 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.

Man (in Good Earnest) Is A Marvellous Vain, Fickle, And Unstable Subject, And On Whom It Is Very Hard To Form Any Certain And Uniform Judgment.

We Have Power Over Nothing Except Our Will.

A Tutor Should Not Be Continually Thundering Instruction Into The Ears Of His Pupil, As If He Were Pouring It Through A Funnel, But, After Having Put The Lad, Like A Young Horse, On A Trot, Before Him, To Observe His Paces, And See What He Is Able To Perform, Should, According To The Extent Of His Capacity, Induce Him To Taste, To Distinguish, And To Find Out Things For Himself; Sometimes Opening The Way, At Other Times Leaving It For Him To Open; And By Abating Or Increasing His Own Pace, Accommodate His Precepts To The Capacity Of His Pupil.

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.

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

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

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

I Do Not Teach. I Relate.

Just As In Habiliments It Is A Sign Of Weakness To Wish To Make Oneself Noticeable By Some Peculiar And Unaccustomed Fashion, So, In Language, The Quest For New-fangled Phrases And Little-known Words Comes From A Puerile And Pedantic Ambition.

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

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.

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

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.

What Am I To Choose? "choose What You Please, As Long As You Choose." There You Have A Foolish Answer, Which Seems To Be The Outcome, However, Of All Dogmatism, Which Will Not Allow Us To Be Ignorant Of That Which We Are Ignorant.

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.

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

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

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?

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

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