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What Harm Cause Not Those Huge Draughts Or Pictures Which Wanton Youth With Chalk Or Coals Draw In Each Passage, Wall Or Stairs Of Our Great Houses, Whence A Cruel Contempt Of Our Natural Store Is Bred In Them?

-Michel De Montaigne

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What Harm Cause Not

Michel De Montaigne

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What Harm Cause Not Those Huge Draughts Or Pictures Which Wanton Youth With Chalk Or Coals Draw In Each Passage, Wall Or Stairs Of Our Great Houses, Whence A Cruel Contempt Of Our Natural Store Is Bred In Them?

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

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

There Are Some Defeats More Triumphant Than Victories.

The Most Evident Token And Apparent Sign Of True Wisdom Is A Constant And Unconstrained Rejoicing.

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

Most Men Are Rich In Borrowed Sufficiency: A Man May Very Well Say A Good Thing, Give A Good Answer, Cite A Good Sentence, Without At All Seeing The Force Of Either The One Or The Other.

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.

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

Each Person Calls Barbarism Whatever Is Not His Or Her Own Practice.... We May Call Cannibals Barbarians, In Respect To The Rulesof Reason, But Not In Respect To Ourselves, Who Surpass Them In Every Kind Of Barbarity.

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?

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

Why Did I Love Her? Because It Was Her; Because It Was Me.

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.

Necessity Reconciles And Brings Men Together; And This Accidental Connection Afterward Forms Itself Into Laws.

It Needs Good Management To Enjoy Life. I Enjoy It Twice As Much As Others, For The Measure Of Enjoyment Depends On The Greater Or Less Attention That We Give To It...the Shorter My Possession Of Life The Deeper And Fuller I Must Make It.

Is There Anything So Grave And Serious As An Ass?

Lend Yourself To Others, But Give Yourself To Yourself.

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.

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

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.

Que Sçais-je?" (what Do I Know?)

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.

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.

To Philosophize Is To Doubt.

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

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

It Is Fear That I Stand Most In Fear Of, In Sharpness It Exceeds Every Other Feeling.

Other Passions Have Objects To Flatter Them, And Seem To Content And Satisfy Them For A While; There Is Power In Ambition, Pleasure In Luxury, And Pelf In Covetousness; But Envy Can Gain Nothing But Vexation.

Poverty Of Goods Is Easily Cured; Poverty Of Soul, Impossible.

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

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 Customs And Practices Of Life In Society Sweep Us Along.

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.

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

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

Words Of Wisdom

Every Man Bears The Whole Stamp Of The Human Condition.

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

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

Presumption Is Our Natural And Original Malady. The Most Vulnerable And Frail Of All Creatures Is Man, And At The Same Time The Most Arrogant.

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

Certainly, If He Still Has Himself, A Man Of Understanding Has Lost Nothing.

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

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.

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

Laws Are Often Made By Fools, And Even More Often By Men Who Fail In Equity Because They Hate Equality: But Always By Men, Vain Authorities Who Can Resolve Nothing.

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.

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

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!

To Philosophize Is To Learn To Die.

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.

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.

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

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

Wise People Are Foolish If They Cannot Adapt To Foolish People.

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.

Wit Is A Dangerous Weapon, Even To The Possessor, If He Knows Not How To Use It Discreetly.

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

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

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

I Neither Complain Of The Past, Nor Do I Fear The Future.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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

He Who Is Not Sure Of His Memory, Should Not Undertake The Trade Of Lying.

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

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.

Saying Is One Thing And Doing Is Another; We Are To Consider The Sermon And The Preacher Distinctly And Apart.

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

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

There Is No Passion So Contagious As That Of Fear.

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.

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.

A Well-bred Man Is Always Sociable And Complaisant.

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

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

Most Pleasures Embrace Us But To Strangle.

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

True Freedom Is To Have Power Over Oneself For Everything.

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

Lawyers And Physicians Are An Ill Provision For Any Country.

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

Fortune, Seeing That She Could Not Make Fools Wise, Has Made Them Lucky.

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

He That First Likened Glory To A Shadow Did Better Than He Was Aware Of. They Are Both Of Them Things Excellently Vain. Glory Also, Like A Shadow, Goes Sometimes Before The Body, And Sometimes In Length Infinitely Exceeds It.

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

I Never Rebel So Much Against France As Not To Regard Paris With A Friendly Eye; She Has Had My Heart Since My Childhood... I Love Her Tenderly, Even To Her Warts And Her Spots. I Am French Only By This Great City: The Glory Of France, And One Of The Noblest Ornaments Of The World.

Give Me The Provisions And Whole Apparatus Of A Kitchen, And I Would Starve.

Whatever Is Enforced By Command Is More Imputed To Him Who Exacts Than To Him Who Performs.

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

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

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

When I Dance, I Dance; When I Sleep, I Sleep; Yes, And When I Walk Alone In A Beautiful Orchard, If My Thoughts Drift To Far-off Matters For Some Part Of The Time For Some Other Part I Lead Them Back Again To The Walk, The Orchard, To The Sweetness Of This Solitude, To Myself.

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.

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.

He That Had Never Seen A River Imagined The First He Met To Be The Sea; And The Greatest Things That Have Fallen Within Our Knowledge We Conclude The Extremes That Nature Makes Of The Kind.

But Sure There Is Need Of Other Remedies Than Dreaming, A Weak Contention Of Art Against Nature.

To Know How To Live Is My Trade And My Art.

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

The Beauty Of Stature Is The Only Beauty Of Men.

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.

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.

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.

There Is More Ado To Interpret Interpretations Than To Interpret Things, And More Books Upon Books Than Upon Any Other Subject; We Do Nothing But Comment Upon One Another. Every Place Swarms With Commentaries; Of Authors There Is Great Scarcity.

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

If Others Examined Themselves Attentively, As I Do, They Would Find Themselves, As I Do, Full Of Inanity And Nonsense. Get Rid Of It I Cannot Without Getting Rid Of Myself.

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

One Should Be Ever Booted And Spurred And Ready To Depart.

Death And Dying

Business In A Certain Sort Of Men Is A Mark Of Understanding, And They Are Honored For It. Their Souls Seek Repose In Agitation, As Children Do By Being Rocked In A Cradle. They May Pronounce Themselves As Serviceable To Their Friends As Troublesome To Themselves. No One Distributes His Money To Others, But Every One Therein Distributes His Time And His Life. There Is Nothing Of Which We Are So Prodigal As Of Those Two Things, Of Which To Be Thrifty Would Be Both Commendable And Useful.

Tis Well For Old Age That It Is Always Accompanied With Want Of Perception, Ignorance, And A Facility Of Being Deceived. For Should We See How We Are Used And Would Not Acquiesce, What Would Become Of Us?

Since I Would Rather Make Of Him An Able Man Than A Learned Man, I Would Also Urge That Care Be Taken To Choose A Guide With A Well-made Rather Than A Well-filled Head.

The Utility Of Living Consists Not In The Length Of Days, But In The Use Of Time; A Man May Have Lived Long, And Yet Lived But A Little.

To Behave Rightly, We Ourselves Should Never Lay A Hand On Our Servants As Long As Our Anger Lasts. Things Will Seem Different To Us When We Have Quieted And Cooled Down.

So It Is With Minds. Unless You Keep Them Busy With Some Definite Subject That Will Bridle And Control Them, They Throw Themselves In Disorder Hither And Yon In The Vague Field Of Imagination... And There Is No Mad Or Idle Fancy That They Do Not Bring Forth In The Agitation.

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

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

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

We Seek And Offer Ourselves To Be Gulled.

The Reverse Side Of Truth Has A Hundred Thousand Shapes And No Defined Limits.

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

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.

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

What A Man Hates, He Takes Seriously.

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

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

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

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.

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

Health Is A Precious Thing, And The Only One, In Truth, Meriting That A Man Should Lay Out Not Only His Time, Sweat, Labor And Goods, But Also Life Itself To Obtain It.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Death And Dying

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

The Curiosity Of Knowing Things Has Been Given To Man For A Scourge.

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

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.

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

Marriage Can Be Compared To A Cage: Birds Outside It Despair To Enter, And Birds Within, To Escape.

We Are Never Present With, But Always Beyond Ourselves; Fear, Desire, Hope, Still Push Us On Toward The Future.

Is It Not A Noble Farce, Wherein Kings, Republics, And Emperors Have For So Many Ages Played Their Parts, And To Which The Whole Vast Universe Serves For A Theatre?

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.

Socrates ... Brought Human Wisdom Back Down From Heaven, Where She Was Wasting Her Time, And Restored Her To Man.... It Is Impossible To Go Back Further And Lower. He Did A Great Favor To Human Nature By Showing How Much It Can Do By Itself.

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

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.

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.

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

I Want Death To Find Me Planting My Cabbages.

Nothing Is So Firmly Believed As What We Least Know.

An Untempted Woman Cannot Boast Of Her Chastity.

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.

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.

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

Custom Is A Violent And Treacherous School Mistress. She, By Little And Lithe, Slyly And Unperceived, Slips In The Foot Of Her Authority; But Having By This Gentle And Humble Beginning, With The Benefit Of Time, Fixed And Established It, She Then Unmasks A Furious And Tyrannic Countenance, Against Which We Have No More The Courage Or The Power So Much As To Lift Up Our Eyes.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

There Is Nothing Of Evil In Life For Him Who Rightly Comprehends That Death Is No Evil; To Know How To Die Delivers Us From All Subjection And Constraint.

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

I Prefer The Company Of Peasants Because They Have Not Been Educated Sufficiently To Reason Incorrectly.

A Man May Be Humble Through Vainglory.

Gentleness And Repose Are Paramount To Everything Else In Woman.

Wine Is The Benevolent God, Who Gives Back Gaiety To Men And Restores Youth To The Old.

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.

Habit Is Second Nature.

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

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.

Don't Discuss Yourself, For You Are Bound To Lose; If You Belittle Yourself, You Are Believed; If You Praise Yourself, You Are Disbelieved.

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.

[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.

Socrates And Then Archesilaus Used To Make Their Pupils Speak First; They Spoke Afterwards. 'obest Plerumque Iss Discere Volunt Authoritas Eorum Qui Docent.' [for Those Who Want To Learn, The Obstacle Can Often Be The Authority Of Those Who Teach]

I Have Seen People Rude By Being Over-polite.

It Is Easier To Sacrifice Great Than Little Things.

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

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

The Most Universal Quality Is Diversity.

Truth And Reason Are Common To Everyone, And Are No More His Who Spake Them First Than His Who Speaks Them After.

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

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.

There Is Power In Ambition, Pleasure In Luxury...but Envy Can Gain Nothing But Vexation.

We Should Spread Joy, But, As Far As We Can, Repress Sorrow.

Fortune Does Us Neither Good Nor Hurt; She Only Presents Us The Matter, And The Seed, Which Our Soul, More Powerfully Than She, Turns And Applies As She Best Pleases; Being The Sole Cause And Sovereign Mistress Of Her Own Happy Or Unhappy Condition.

The Good, Supreme, Divine Poetry Is Above The Rules And Reason. Whoever Discerns Its Beauty With A Firm, Sedate Gaze Does Not See It, Any More Than He Sees The Splendor Of A Lightning Flash. It Does Not Persuade Our Judgement, It Ravishes And Overwhelms It.

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.

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