Background Image

...

Who Does Not See That I Have Taken A Road Along Which I Shall Go, Without Stopping And Without Effort, As Long As There Is Ink And Paper In The World? I Cannot Keep A Record Of My Life By My Actions; Fortune Places Them Too Low. I Keep It By My Thoughts.

-Michel De Montaigne

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Who Does Not See

Michel De Montaigne

...

Who Does Not See That I Have Taken A Road Along Which I Shall Go, Without Stopping And Without Effort, As Long As There Is Ink And Paper In The World? I Cannot Keep A Record Of My Life By My Actions; Fortune Places Them Too Low. I Keep It By My Thoughts.

Views: 10

Topic

More From Michel De Montaigne

Marriage Has, For Its Share, Usefulness, Justice, Honour, And Constancy; A Stale But More Durable Pleasure. Love Is Grounded On Pleasure Alone, And It Is Indeed More Gratifying To The Senses, Keener And More Acute; A Pleasure Stirred And Kept Alive By Difficulties. There Must Be A Sting And A Smart In It. It Ceases To Be Love If It Has No Shafts And No Fire.

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

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!

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.

We Are More Solicitous That Men Speak Of Us, Than How They Speak.

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.

Every Man Carries The Entire Form Of Human Condition.

Human Condition

True Freedom Is To Have Power Over Oneself For Everything.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The Premeditation Of Death Is The Premeditation Of Liberty; He Who Has Learnt To Die Has Forgot To Serve.

It Is Putting A Very High Price On One's Conjectures To Have Someone Roasted Alive On Their Account.

Age Imprints More Wrinkles In The Mind Than It Does On The Face.

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.

I Walk Firmer And More Secure Uphill Than Down.

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

Death And Dying

There Is Little Less Trouble In Governing A Private Family Than A Whole Kingdom.

Children's Plays Are Not Sports, And Should Be Deemed As Their Most Serious Actions.

No Pleasure Has Any Savor For Me Without Communication.

Without Communication

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.

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

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

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

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

In Nine Lifetimes, You'll Never Know As Much About Your Cat As Your Cat Knows About You.

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

The Good Opinion Of The Vulgar Is Injurious.

Who Feareth To Suffer Suffereth Already, Because He Feareth.

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.

Nothing Is So Firmly Believed As What We Least Know.

I Love A Friendship That Flatters Itself In The Sharpness And Vigor Of Its Communications.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

An Untempted Woman Cannot Boast Of Her Chastity.

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.

A Man May By Custom Fortify Himself Against Pain, Shame, And Suchlike Accidents; But As To Death, We Can Experience It But Once, And Are All Apprentices When We Come To It

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

The Art Of Dining Well Is No Slight Art, The Pleasure Not A Slight Pleasure; Neither The Greatest Captains Nor The Greatest Philosophers Have Disdained The Use Or Science Of Eating Well.

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.

Lovers Are Angry, Reconciled, Entreat, Thank, Appoint, And Finally Speak All Things, By Their.

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.

Every Man Has Within Himself The Entire Human Condition

Human Condition

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

There Is No Passion So Contagious As That Of Fear.

A Man Must Either Imitate The Vicious Or Hate Them.

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

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

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.

No Man Dies Before His Hour. The Time You Leave Behind Was No More Yours, Than That Which Was Before Your Birth, And Concerneth You No More.

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

There Is No Greater Enemy To Those Who Would Please Than Expectation.

God Defend Me From Being An Honest Man According To The Description Which Every Day I See Made By Each Man To His Own Glorification

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.

Custom Is A Second Nature, And No Less Powerful.

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

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

I Would Rather Produce My Passions Than Brood Over Them At My Expense; They Grow Languid When They Have Vent And Expression. It Is Better That Their Point Should Operate Outwardly Than Be Turned Against Us.

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

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

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

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.

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

The Pleasantest Things In The World Are Pleasant Thoughts, And The Great Art Of Life Is To Have As Many Of Them As Possible.

Inspirational Life

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

.. 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.

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

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

My Trade And My Art Is Living. He Who Forbids Me To Speak About It According To My Sense, Experience, And Practice, Let Him Orderthe Architect To Speak Of Buildings Not According To Himself But According To His Neighbor; According To Another Man's Knowledge, Not According To His Own.

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

Every Abridgement Of A Good Book Is A Fool Abridged.

In My Opinion, The Most Fruitful And Natural Play Of The Mind Is Conversation. I Find It Sweeter Than Any Other Action In Life; And If I Were Forced To Choose, I Think I Would Rather Lose My Sight Than My Hearing And Voice. The Study Of Books Is A Drowsy And Feeble Exercise Which Does Not Warm You Up.

Laws Are Maintained In Credit, Not Because They Are Essentially Just, But Because They Are Laws. It Is The Mystical Foundation Of Their Authority; They Have None Other.

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

What Enriches Language Is Its Being Handled And Exploited By Beautiful Minds-not So Much By Making Innovations As By Expanding It Through More Vigorous And Varied Applications, By Extending It And Deploying It. It Is Not Words That They Contribute: What They Do Is Enrich Their Words, Deepen Their Meanings And Tie Down Their Usage; They Teach It Unaccustomed Rhythms, Prudently Though And With Ingenuity.

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

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

What We Are Told Of The Inhabitants Of Brazil, That They Never Die But Of Old Age, Is Attributed To The Tranquility And Serenity Of Their Climate; I Rather Attribute It To The Tranquility And Serenity Of Their Souls, Which Are Free From All Passion, Thought, Or Any Absorbing And Unpleasant Labors. Those People Spend Their Lives In An Admirable Simplicity And Ignorance, Without Letters, Without Law, Without King, Without Any Manner Of Religion.

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

Few Men Have Been Admired Of Their Familiars.

We Do Not Correct The Man We Hang; We Correct Others By Him.

Our Speech Has Its Weaknesses And Its Defects, Like All The Rest. Most Of The Occasions For The Troubles Of The World Are Grammatical.

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

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.

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?

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

If To Take Up Books Were To Take Them In, And If To See Them Were To Consider Them, And To Run Through Them Were To Grasp Them, I Should Be Wrong To Make Myself Out Quite As Ignorant As I Say I Am.

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.

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

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

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

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?

Everything Must Not Always Be Said, For That Would Be Folly.

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

Kings And Philosophers Defecate, And So Do Ladies.

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

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.

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

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

It Needs Courage To Be Afraid.

A Man Should Think Less Of What He Eats And More With Whom He Eats Because No Food Is So Satisfying As Good Company.

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 .

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

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

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?

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

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

A Strong Memory Is Commonly Coupled With Infirm Judgment.

There Is Perhaps No More Obvious Vanity Than To Write Of It So Vainly.

Like The Watermen Who Advance Forward While They Look Backward.

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

Age Imprints More Wrinkles A In The Mind, Than It Does In The Face, And Souls Are Never, Or Very Rarely Seen, That In Growing Old Do Not Smell Sour And Musty. Man Moves All Together, Both Towards His Perfection And Decay.

I Had Rather Fashion My Mind Than Furnish It.

For Truth Itself Does Not Have The Privilege To Be Employed At Any Time And In Every Way; Its Use, Noble As It Is, Has Its Circumscriptions And Limits.

I, Who Am King Of The Matter I Treat, And Who Owe An Accounting For It To No One, Do Not For All That Believe Myself In All I Write. I Often Hazard Sallies Of My Mind Which I Mistrust.

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.

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.

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

I Would Like To Suggest That Our Minds Are Swamped By Too Much Study And By Too Much Matter Just As Plants Are Swamped By Too Much Water Or Lamps By Too Much Oil; That Our Minds, Held Fast And Encumbered By So Many Diverse Preoccupations, May Well Lose The Means Of Struggling Free, Remaining Bowed And Bent Under The Load; Except That It Is Quite Otherwise: The More Our Souls Are Filled, The More They Expand; Examples Drawn From Far-off Times Show, On The Contrary, That Great Soldiers Ad Statesmen Were Also Great Scholars.

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

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.

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

Law Of Attraction

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

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

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

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

If Faces Were Not Alike, We Could Not Distinguish Men From Beasts; If They Were Not Different, We Could Not Tell One Man From Another.

He That Had Never Seen A River, Imagined The First He Met With To Be The Sea.

There Is No Desire More Natural Than The Desire Of Knowledge. (il N'est Desir Plus Naturel Que Le Desir De Connaissance)

~the Value Of Life Lies Not In The Length Of Days, But In The Use We Make Of Them ~

Satisfaction In Life

One May Be Humble Out Of Pride.

Lawyers And Physicians Are An Ill Provision For Any Country.

The Most Beautiful Lives, To My Mind, Are Those That Conform To The Common Human Pattern, With Order, But Without Miracle And Without Eccentricity.

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.

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.

There Is No Course Of Life So Weak And Sottish As That Which Is Managed By Order, Method, And Discipline.

To Compose Our Character Is Our Duty, Not To Compose Books, And To Win, Not Battles And Provinces, But Order And Tranquility In Our Conduct. Our Great And Glorious Masterpiece Is To Live Appropriately. All Other Things, Ruling, Hoarding, Building, Are Only Little Appendages And Props, At Most.

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.

The World Always Looks Straights Ahead; As For Me, I Turn My Gaze Inward, I Fix It There And Keep It Busy. Everyone Looks In Front Of Him: As For Me, I Look Inside Me: I Have No Business But With Myself; I Continually Observe Myself, I Take Stock Of Myself, I Taste Myself. Others...they Always Go Forward; As For Me, I Roll About In Myself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Young Man Ought To Cross His Own Rules, To Awake His Vigor, And To Keep It From Growing Faint And Rusty. And There Is No Course Of Life So Weak And Sottish As That Which Is Carried On By Rule And Discipline.

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.

Others Form Man; I Tell Of Him, And Portray A Particular One, Very Ill-formed, Whom I Should Really Make Very Different From Whathe Is If I Had To Fashion Him Over Again. But Now It Is Done.

No Profession Or Occupation Is More Pleasing Than The Military; A Profession Or Exercise Both Noble In Execution (for The Strongest, Most Generous And Proudest Of All Virtues Is True Valor) And Noble In Its Cause. No Utility Either More Just Or Universal Than The Protection Of The Repose Or Defense Of The Greatness Of One's Country. The Company And Daily Conversation Of So Many Noble, Young And Active Men Cannot But Be Well-pleasing To You.

There Is No Conversation More Boring Than The One Where Everybody Agrees.

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.

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.

There Are Some Defeats More Triumphant Than Victories.

He Loves Little Who Loves By Rule.

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.

To Smell, Though Well, Is To Stink.

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.

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.

In My Opinion, Every Rich Man Is A Miser.

The Worst Of My Actions Or Conditions Seem Not So Ugly Unto Me As I Find It Both Ugly And Base Not To Dare To Avouch For Them.

Experience Stands On Its Own Dunghill In Medicine, And Reason Yields It Place. Medicine Has Always Professed Experience To Be The Touchstone Of Its Operations.

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.

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

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.

The Thing I Fear Most Is Fear.

Of The Opinions Of Philosophy I Most Gladly Embrace Those That Are Most Solid, That Is To Say, Most Human And Most Our Own; My Opinions, In Conformity With My Conduct, Are Low And Humble.

How Many Quarrels, And How Important, Has The Doubt As To The Meaning Of This Syllable "hoc" Produced For The World!

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.

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.

We Feel A Kind Of Bittersweet Pricking Of Malicious Delight In Contemplating The Misfortunes Of Others.

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

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.

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

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

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

The Human Face Is A Weak Guarantee; Yet It Deserves Some Consideration. And If I Had To Whip The Wicked, I Would Do So More Severely To Those Who Belied And Betrayed The Promises That Nature Had Implanted On Their Brows; I Would Punish Malice More Harshly When It Was Hidden Under A Kindly Appearance.

Decency, Not To Dare To Do That In Public Which It Is Decent Enough To Do In Private.

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

The Dispersing And Scattering Our Names Into Many Mouths, We Call Making Them More Great.

Those Who Make A Practice Of Comparing Human Actions Are Never So Perplexed As When They Try To See Them As A Whole And In The Same Light; For They Commonly Contradict Each Other So Strangely That It Seems Impossible That They Have Come From The Same Shop.

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

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

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.

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

I Speak To The Paper, As I Speak To The First Person I Meet.

Man Is The Sole Animal Whose Nudities Offend His Own Companions, And The Only One Who, In His Natural Actions, Withdraws And Hides Himself From His Own Kind.

Who Is It That Does Not Voluntarily Exchange His Health, His Repose, And His Very Life For Reputation And Glory? The Most Useless, Frivolous, And False Coin That Passes Current Among Us.

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

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.

Trending Author

Bernhard Langer

Category