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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.

-Michel De Montaigne

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Whenever A New Finding

Michel De Montaigne

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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.

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The Sage Says That All That Is Under Heaven Incurs The Same Law And The Same Fate.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

There Is No Pleasure To Me Without Communication: There Is Not So Much As A Sprightly Thought Comes Into My Mind That It Does Not Grieve Me To Have Produced Alone, And That I Have No One To Tell It To.

Virtue Rejects Facility To Be Her Companion. She Requires A Craggy, Rough And Thorny Way.

Make Your Educational Laws Strict And Your Criminal Ones Can Be Gentle; But If You Leave Youth Its Liberty You Will Have To Dig Dungeons For Ages.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

My Errors Are By Now Natural And Incorrigible; But The Good That Worthy Men Do The Public By Making Themselves Imitable, I Shall Perhaps Do By Making Myself Evitable.

Who Does Not In Some Sort Live To Others, Does Not Live Much To Himself.

I Do Not Believe, From What I Have Been Told About This People, That There Is Anything Barbarous Or Savage About Them, Except That We All Call Barbarous Anything That Is Contrary To Our Own Habits.

The Conduct Of Our Lives Is The True Mirror Of Our Doctrine.

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?

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.

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

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

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

Whom Conscience, Ne'er Asleep, Wounds With Incessant Strokes, Not Loud, But Deep.

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

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

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.

That Is Why Bias Jested With Those Who Were Going Through The Perils Of A Great Storm With Him And Calling On The Gods For Help: "shut Up," He Said, "so That They Do Not Realize That You Are Here With Me.

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

We Need To Interpret Interpretations More Than To Interpret Things.

Princes Give Mee Sufficiently, If They Take Nothing From Me, And Doe Me Much Good, If They Doe Me No Hurt: It Is All I Require Of Them.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

The Perpetual Work Of Your Life Is But To Lay The Foundation Of Death.

If People Must Be Talking About Me, I Would Have It To Be Truthfully And Justly. I Would Willingly Return From The Next World To Contradict Any Person Who Described Me Other Than I Was, Although He Did It To Honour Me.

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

I Am Afraid That Our Eyes Are Bigger Than Our Stomachs, And That We Have More Curiosity Than Understanding. We Grasp At Everything, But Catch Nothing Except Wind.

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

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

Why Do People Respect The Package Rather Than The Man?

Plenty And Indigence Depend Upon The Opinion Every One Has Of Them; And Riches, Like Glory Of Health, Have No More Beauty Or Pleasure Than Their Possessor Is Pleaded To Lend Them.

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

My Library Is My Kingdom, And Here I Try To Make My Rule Absolute-shutting Off This Single Nook From Wife, Daughter And Society. Elsewhere I Have Only A Verbal Authority, And Vague. Unhappy Is The Man, In My Opinion, Who Has No Spot At Home Where He Can Be At Home To Himself-to Court Himself And Hide Away.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

The First Distinction Among Men, And The First Consideration That Gave One Precedence Over Another, Was Doubtless The Advantage Of Beauty.

Nature Has Made Us A Present Of A Broad Capacity For Entertaining Ourselves Apart, And Often Calls Us To Do So, To Teach Us That We Owe Ourselves In Part To Society, But In The Best Part To Ourselves.

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?

Long Life, And Short, Are By Death Made All One; For There Is No Long, Nor Short, To Things That Are No More.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Whenever A New Discovery Is Reported To The World, They Say First, It Is Probably Not True, Then After, When The Truth Of The New Proposition Has Been Demonstrated Beyond Question, They Say, Yes, It May Be True, But It Is Not Important. Finally, When Sufficient Time Has Elapsed To Fully Evidence Its Importance, They Say, Yes, Surely It Is Important, But It Is No Longer New.

It Is No Hard Matter To Get Children; But After They Are Born, Then Begins The Trouble, Solicitude, And Care Rightly To Train, Principle, And Bring Them Up.

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

If I Were A Maker Of Books I Should Compile A Register, With Comments, Of Different Deaths. He Who Should Teach People To Die, Would Teach Them To Live.

We Must Not Attach Knowledge To The Mind, We Have To Incorporate It There.

Fear Sometimes Adds Wings To The Heels, And Sometimes Nails Them To The Ground, And Fetters Them From Moving.

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

Excellent Memories Are Often Coupled With Feeble Judgments.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Now, Since Everything Else Is Furnished With The Exact Amount Of Needle And Thread Required To Maintain Its Being, It Is In Truth Incredible That We Alone Should Be Brought Into The World In A Defective And Indigent State, In A State Such That We Cannot Maintain Ourselves Without External Aid.

Que Sçais-je?" (what Do I Know?)

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

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

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

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

To Philosophize Is To Doubt.

There Is No Man So Good That If He Placed All His Actions And Thoughts Under The Scrutiny Of The Laws, He Would Not Deserve Hanging Ten Times In His Life.

The Whole Idea We Have For Their Chastity Is Ridiculous. They Would Have To Become Numb And Invisible To Please Us. I Don't Know Whether The Exploits Of Alexander And Caesar Really Surpass The Resolution Of A Beautiful Young Woman, Bred Up In The Light And Commerce Of Our Society, Who Still Keeps Herself Whole. There Is No Doing So Hard As Not Doing.

Amongst So Many Borrowed Things, Am Glad If I Can Steal One, Disguising And Altering It For Some New Service.

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

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.

The Entire Lower World Was Created In The Likeness Of The Higher World. All That Exists In The Higher World Appears Like An Image In This Lower World; Yet All This Is But One.

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

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.

There Is Not Much Less Vexation In The Government Of A Private Family Than In The Managing Of An Entire State.

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.

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

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.

Most Of Our Occupations Are Low Comedy.... We Must Play Our Part Duly, But As The Part Of A Borrowed Character. Of The Mask And Appearance We Must Not Make A Real Essence, Nor Of What Is Foreign What Is Our Very Own.

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

No One Should Be Subjected To Force Over Things Which Belonged To Him.

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.

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

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.

The Beginnings Of All Things Are Weak And Tender. We Must Therefore Be Clear-sighted In The Beginnings, For, As In Their Budding We Discern Not The Danger, So In Their Full Growth We Perceive Not The Remedy.

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

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

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

Whoever Will Be Cured Of Ignorance, Let Him Confess It.

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

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

When I Quote Others I Do So In Order To Express My Own Ideas More Clearly.

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.

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

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

Only The Fools Are Certain And Assured.

Seeing That The Senses Cannot Decide Our Dispute, Being Themselves Full Of Uncertainty, We Must Have Recourse To Reason; There Is No Reason But Must Be Built Upon Another Reason: So Here We Are Retreating Backwards To Infinity.

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.

One May Be Humble Out Of Pride.

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

If By Being Overstudious, We Impair Our Health And Spoil Our Good Humor, Let Us Give It Up.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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?

Oh These Foolish Men! They Could Not Create So Much As A Worm, But They Create Gods By The Dozens.

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

Why Dost Thou Complain Of This World? It Detains Thee Not; Thy Own Cowardice Is The Cause, If Thou Livest In Pain.

A Strong Imagination Begetteth Opportunity.

Time Steals Away Without Any Inconvenience.

In True Education, Anything That Comes To Our Hand Is As Good As A Book: The Prank Of A Page- Boy, The Blunder Of A Servant, A Bit Of Table Talk - They Are All Part Of The Curriculum.

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

If I Am To Serve As An Instrument Of Deceit, At Least Let It Be With A Clear Conscience. I Do Not Want To Be Considered Either So Affectionate Or So Loyal A Servant As To Be Found Fit To Betray Anyone.

The Smallest Annoyances, Disturb Us The Most.

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

Behold The Hands, How They Promise, Conjure, Appeal, Menace, Pray, Supplicate, Refuse, Beckon, Interrogate, Admire, Confess, Cringe, Instruct, Command, Mock And What Not Besides, With A Variation And Multiplication Of Variation Which Makes The Tongue Envious.

To Know Much Is Often The Cause Of Doubting More.

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.

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

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 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?

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.

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

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

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

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

Every Movement Reveals Us.

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.

He Who Would Teach Men To Die Would Teach Them To Live.

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

No Man Is So Exquisitely Honest Or Upright In Living, But That Ten Times In His Life He Might Not Lawfully Be Hanged.

Knowledge Is An Excellent Drug; But No Drug Has Virtue Enough To Preserve Itself From Corruption And Decay, If The Vessel Be Tainted And Impure Wherein It Is Put To Keep.

Men Are Nothing Until They Are Excited.

Words Repeated Again Have As Another Sound, So Another Sense.

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.

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

We Must Learn To Suffer What We Cannot Evade.

Truly It Is Reasonable To Make A Great Distinction Between The Faults That Come From Our Weakness And Those That Come From Our Wickedness.

The Wise Man Lives As Long As He Ought, Not So Long As He Can.

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.

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

Cognitive Therapy

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

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

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

It Is Indeed The Boundary Of Life, Beyond Which We Are Not To Pass; Which The Law Of Nature Has Pitched For A Limit Not To Be Exceeded.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

A Good Marriage Would Be Between A Blind Wife And A Deaf Husband.

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

Keeping Secrets

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

My Art And Profession Is To Live.

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

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