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We Are Nearer Neighbors To Ourselves Than The Whiteness Of Snow Or The Weight Of Stones Are To Us: If Man Does Not Know Himself, How Should He Know His Functions And Powers?

-Michel De Montaigne

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We Are Nearer Neighbors

Michel De Montaigne

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We Are Nearer Neighbors To Ourselves Than The Whiteness Of Snow Or The Weight Of Stones Are To Us: If Man Does Not Know Himself, How Should He Know His Functions And Powers?

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

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.

Vice Leaves Repentance In The Soul, Like An Ulcer In The Flesh, Which Is Always Scratching And Lacerating Itself; For Reason Effaces All Other Griefs And Sorrows, But It Begets That Of Repentance.

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

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.

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

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

Can Anything Be Imagined So Ridiculous That This Miserable And Wretched Creature, Who Is Not So Much As Master Of Himself, But Subject To The Injuries Of All Things, Should Call Himself Master And Emperor Of The World, Of Which He Has Not Power To Know The Least Part, Much Less To Command The Whole?

The Desire For Riches Is More Sharpened By Their Use Than By Their Need. Pleasing All: A Mark That Can Never Be Aimed At Or Hit.

Our Great And Glorious Masterpiece Is To Live Appropriately.

One Open Way Of Speaking Introduces Another Open Way Of Speaking, And Draws Out Discoveries, Like Wine And Love.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I Would Have Every Man Write What He Knows And No More.

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.

The Virtue Of The Soul Does Not Consist In Flying High, But In Walking Orderly.

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.

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

I Have Never Seen A Greater Monster Or Miracle In The World Than Myself.

Learning Is A Good Medicine: But No Medicine Is Powerful Enough To Preserve Itself From Taint And Corruption Independently Of Defects In The Jar That It Is Kept In. One Man Sees Clearly But Does Not See Straight: Consequently He Sees What Is Good But Fails To Follow It; He Sees Knowledge And Does Not Use It.

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

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.

As Far As I Am Concerned, No Road That Would Lead Us To Health Is Either Arduous Or Expensive.

The Clatter Of Arms Drowns Out The Voice Of Law.

No-one Is Exempt From Speaking Nonsense – The Only Misfortune Is To Do It Solemnly.

Death Pays All Debts.

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.

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

I Put Forward Formless And Unresolved Notions, As Do Those Who Publish Doubtful Questions To Debate In The Schools, Not To Establish The Truth But To Seek It.

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

The Land Of Marriage Has This Peculiarity: That Strangers Are Desirous Of Inhabiting It, While Its Natural Inhabitants Would Willingly Be Banished From Thence.

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

God Might Grant Us Riches, Honours, Life, And Even Health, To Our Own Hurt; For Every Thing That Is Pleasing To Us Is Not Always Good For Us. If He Sends Us Death, Or An Increase Of Sickness, Instead Of A Cure, Vvrga Tua Et Baculus, Tuus Ipsa Me Consolata Sunt. "thy Rod And Thy Staff Have Comforted Me," He Does It By The Rule Of His Providence, Which Better And More Certainly Discerns What Is Proper For Us Than We Can Do; And We Ought To Take It In Good Part, As Coming From A Wise And Most Friendly Hand.

I Write To Keep From Going Mad From The Contradictions I Find Among Mankind - And To Work Some Of Those Contradictions Out For Myself.

Nature Should Have Been Pleased To Have Made This Age Miserable, Without Making It Also Ridiculous.

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

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

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

"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.

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.

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.

We Seek And Offer Ourselves To Be Gulled.

I Am One Of Those Who Hold That Poetry Is Never So Blithe As In A Wanton And Irregular Subject.

It Is For Little Souls, That Truckle Under The Weight Of Affairs, Not To Know How Clearly To Disengage Themselves, And Not To Know How To Lay Them Aside And Take Them Up Again.

There Is Nothing More Notable In Socrates Than That He Found Time, When He Was An Old Man, To Learn Music And Dancing, And Thought It Time Well Spent.

Those Who Give The First Shock To A State Are The First Overwhelmed In Its Ruin; The Fruits Of Public Commotion Are Seldom Enjoyed By Him Who Was The First Mover; He Only Beats The Water For Another's Net.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Smallest Annoyances, Disturb Us The Most.

An Ancient Father Says That A Dog We Know Is Better Company Than A Man Whose Language We Do Not Understand.

All General Judgments Are Loose And Imperfect

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.

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

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

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

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

I Study Myself More Than Any Other Subject. That Is My Metaphysics, That Is My Physics.

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

Whenever A New Finding Is Reported To The World People Say - It Is Probably Not True. Later On, When The Reliability Of A New Finding Has Been Fully Confirmed, People Say - Ok, It May Be True But It Has No Real Significance. At Last, When Even The Significance Of The Finding Is Obvious To Everybody, People Say - Well, It Might Have Some Significance, But The Idea Is Not New.

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

I Quote Others Only In Order The Better To Express Myself.

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

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

The Knowledge Of Courtesy And Good Manners Is A Very Necessary Study. It Is Like Grace And Beauty, That Which Begets Liking And An Inclination To Love One Another At The First Sight.

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

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

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.

We Every Day And Every Hour Say Things Of Another That We Might More Properly Say Of Ourselves, Could We But Apply Our Observations To Our Own Concerns.

This Very Rome That We Behold Deserves Our Love ...: The Only Common And Universal City.

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?

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

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

Experience Has Further Taught Me This, That We Ruin Ourselves By Impatience.

The Confidence In Another Man's Virtue Is No Light Evidence Of A Man's Own, And God Willingly Favors Such A Confidence.

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?

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

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

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

No Wind Favors He Who Has No Destined Port.

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

The Truth Of These Days Is Not That Which Really Is, But What Every Man Persuades Another Man To Believe.

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

There Are Truths On This Side Of The Pyrenees Which Are Falsehoods On The Other

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Reason Has So Many Forms That We Do Not Know Which To Choose-experiment Has No Fewer.

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.

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

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

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.

Tis So Much To Be A King, That He Only Is So By Being So.

We Can Be Knowledgeable With Other Men's Knowledge, But We Cannot Be Wise With Other Men's Wisdom.

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

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

Every One Rushes Elsewhere And Into The Future, Because No One Wants To Face One's Own Inner Self.

All Of The Days Go Toward Death And The Last One Arrives There.

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.

If You Don't Know How To Die, Don't Worry; Nature Will Tell You What To Do On The Spot, Fully And Adequately. She Will Do This Job Perfectly For You; Don't Bother Your Head About It.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Oh, What A Valiant Faculty Is Hope, That In A Mortal Subject, And In A Moment, Makes Nothing Of Usurping Infinity, Immensity, Eternity, And Of Supplying Its Masters Indigence, At Its Pleasure, With All Things He Can Imagine Or Desire!

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.

To Philosophize Is To Doubt.

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

Every Period Of Life Has Its Peculiar Prejudices; Whoever Saw Old Age, That Did Not Applaud The Past, And Condemn The Present Times?

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

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Writing Does Not Cause Misery. It Is Born Of Misery.

Lucius Arruntius Killed Himself, He Said, To Escape Both The Future And The Past.

And I Loathe People Who Find It Harder To Put Up With A Gown Askew Than With A Soul Askew And Who Judge A Man By His Bow, His Bearing And His Boots.

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.

My Appetite Comes To Me While Eating.

A Father Is Very Miserable Who Has No Other Hold On His Children's Affection Than The Need They Have Of His Assistance, If That Can Be Called Affection.

Men Of Simple Understanding, Little Inquisitive And Little Instructed, Make Good Christians.

We Imagine Much More Appropriately An Artisan On His Toilet Seat Or On His Wife Than A Great President, Venerable By His Demeanorand His Ability. It Seems To Us That They Do Not Stoop From Their Lofty Thrones Even To Live.

It Is A Sign Of Contraction Of The Mind When It Is Content, Or Of Weariness. A Spirited Mind Never Stops Within Itself; It Is Always Aspiring And Going Beyond Its Strength.

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

Human Wisdom Makes As Ill Use Of Her Talent When She Exercises It In Rescinding From The Number And Sweetness Of Those Pleasures That Are Naturally Our Due, As She Employs It Favorably And Well In Artificially Disguising And Tricking Out The Ills Of Life To Alleviate The Sense Of Them.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Every Day I Hear Stupid People Say Things That Are Not Stupid.

A Person Is Bound To Lose When He Talks About Himself; If He Belittles Himself, He Is Believed; If He Praises Himself, He Isn't Believed.

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.

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

Judgement Can Do Without Knowledge: But Not Knowledge Without Judgement.

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

Only The Fools Are Certain And Assured.

Everyone Calls Barbarity What He Is Not Accustomed To.

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

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

There Is No Man So Good, Who, Were He To Submit All His Thoughts And Actions To The Laws, Would Not Deserve Hanging Ten Times In His Life.

The Bitterness Of The Potion, And The Abhorrence Of The Patient Are Necessary Circumstances To The Operation. It Must Be Something To Trouble And Disturb The Stomach That Must Purge And Cure It.

When I Express My Opinions It Is So As To Reveal The Measure Of My Sight Not The Measure Of The Thing.

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

Man Is Forming Thousands Of Ridiculous Relations Between Himself And God.

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 Man Is Not Hurt So Much By What Happens, As By His Opinion Of What Happens.

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

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

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

To Die Is Not To Play A Part In Society; It Is The Act Of A Single Person. Let Us Live And Laugh Among Our Friends; Let Us Die And Sulk Among Strangers.

Pleasure Itself Is Painful At The Bottom.

Lying Is A Disgraceful Vice, And One That Plutarch Paints In Most Disgraceful Colors, When He Says That It Is "affording Testimony That One First Despises God, And Then Fears Men." It Is Not Possible More Happily To Describe Its Horrible, Disgusting, And Abandoned Nature; For Can We Imagine Anything More Vile Than To Be Cowards With Regard To Men, And Brave With Regard To God.

I Do Not Understand; I Pause; I Examine.

The Laws Of Conscience, Which We Pretend To Be Derived From Nature, Proceed From Custom.

Of All Human And Ancient Opinions Concerning Religion, That Seems To Me The Most Likely And Most Excusable, That Acknowledged God As An Incomprehensible Power, The Original And Preserver Of All Things, All Goodness, All Perfection, Receiving And Taking In Good Part The Honour And Reverence That Man Paid Him, Under What Method, Name, Or Ceremonies Soever.

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

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

A Well-bred Man Is Always Sociable And Complaisant.

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.

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

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.

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

Virtue Cannot Be Followed But For Herself, And If One Sometimes Borrows Her Mask To Some Other Purpose, She Presently Pulls It Away Again.

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

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.

We Are All Of Us Richer Than We Think We Are; But We Are Taught To Borrow And To Beg, And Brought Up More To Make Use Of What Is Another's Than Of Our Own.

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.

I Conceive That Pleasures Are To Be Avoided If Greater Pains Be The Consequence, And Pains To Be Coveted That Will Terminate In Greater Pleasures.

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.

Habit Is A Second Nature.

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.

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

Habit Is Second Nature.

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

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