Montaigne, Essays.

I think it is Montaigne who has said, that ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head. I am sure it is true as to everything political, and shall endeavor to estrange myself to everything of that character. - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Edmund Randolph, February 3, 1794.

Our soul cannot from her own seat reach so high; ‘tis necessary she must leave it, raise herself up, and, taking the bridle in her teeth, transport her man so far that he shall afterwards himself be astonished at what he has done; as, in war, the heat of battle impels generous soldiers to perform things of so infinite danger, as afterwards, recollecting them, they themselves are the first to wonder at; as it also fares the poets, who are often rapt with admiration of their own writings, and know not where again to find the track through which they performed so fine a career; which also is in them called fury and rapture. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.3, 1588.

A man must deny opportunity to every inopportune action. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.8, 1588.

‘Tis a strong evidence of a weak judgement when men approve of things for their being rare and new, or for their difficulty, where worth and usefulness are not conjoined to recommend them. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I, #54, 1588.

To him who feels the hailstones patter about his ears, the whole hemisphere appears to be in storm and tempest. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

'Tis cowardice, not virtue, to lie squat in a furrow, under a tomb, to evade the blows of fortune; virtue never stops or goes out of her path, for the greatest storm that blows. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.3, 1588.

Neither is any man so old and decrepit, who, having heard of Methuselah, does not think he has yet twenty years good to come. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I, #19. 1588.

For my part, I believe our souls are adult at twenty as much as they are ever like to be, and as capable then as ever. A soul that has not by that time given evident earnest of its force and virtue will never after come to proof. The natural qualities and virtues produce what they have of vigorous and fine, within that term or never. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I, #57, 1588.

No old age can be so decrepid in a man who has passed life in honor, but it must be venerable, especially to his children, whose soul he must have trained up to their duty by reason, not by necessity and the need they have of him, nor by harshness and compulsion. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.8, 1588.

‘Tis an old and pleasant queston, whether the soul of a wise man can be overcome by the strength of wine? - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.2, 1588.

The Germans drink almost indifferently of all wines with delight; their business is to pour down and not to taste; and it’s so much the better for them: their pleasure is so much the more plentiful and nearer at hand. Secondly, to drink after the French fashion, but at two meals, and then very moderately, is to be too sparing of the favours of the god. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.2, 1588.

Now, amongst the rest, drunkenness seems to me to be a gross and brutish vice. The soul has a greater part in the rest, and there are some vices that have something, if a man may so say, of generous in them; there are vices wherein there is a mixture of knowledge, diligence, valor, prudence, dexterity, and address; this one is totally corporeal and earthly. And the rudest nation this day in Europe is that alone where it is in fashion. Other vices discompose the understanding: this totally overthrows it and renders the body stupid. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.2, 1588.

In a life of ambition and glory, it is necessary to hold a stiff rein upon suspicion: fear and distrust invite and draw on offence. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I, #23, 1588.

Anger, spite, malice, impatience, and a vehement desire of getting the better in a concern wherein it were more excusable to be ambitious of being overcome; for to be eminent, to excel above the common rate of frivolous things, nowise befits a man of honor. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I, #50, 1588.

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak. - Michel De Montaigne.

I shall love any one that can unplume me, that is, by clearness of understanding and judgement, and by the sole distinction of the force and beauty of the discourse. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.10, 1588.

Alexander, the most adventerous captain that ever was, very seldom wore armour, and such amongst us that slight it, do not by that much harm to the main concern; for if we see some killed for the want of it, there are few less whom the lumber of arms helps to destroy, either by being overburthened, crushed, and cramped with their weight, by a rude shock, or otherwise. For, in plain truth, to observe the weight and thickness of the armour we have now in use, it seems as if we only sought to defend ourselves, and are rather loaded than secured by it. We have enough to do to support its weight, being so manacled and immured, as if we were only to contend with our own arms, and as if we had not the same obligation to defend them, that they have to defend us. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.9, 1588.

I find that there is nothing barbarous and savage in this nation, by anything that I can gather, excepting, that everyone gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country. As, indeed, we have no other level of truth and reason than the example and idea of the opinions and customs of the place wherein we live: there is always the perfect religion, there the perfect government, there the most exact and accomplished usage of all things. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I, #30, 1588.

For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and the grave; in bed, beauty before goodness; in common discourse, the ablest speaker, whether or no there be sincerity in the case. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.27, 1588.

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. - Michel De Montaigne.

Some impose upon the world that they believe that which they do not believe; others, more in number, make themselves believe that they believe, not being able to penetrate into what it is to believe. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.12, 1588.

Courage, the reputation and glory of which men seek with so greedy an appetite, presents itself, when need requires, as magnificently in cuerpo as in full armour; in a closet, as in a camp; with arms pendant, as with arms raised. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I. 23, 1588.

The man you saw yesterday so adventerous and brave, you must not think it strange to see him as great a poltroon the next: anger, necessity, company, wine, or the sound of the trumpet had roused his spirits; this is no valor formed and established by reason, but accidently created by such circumstances, and therefore it is no wonder, if by contrary circumstances it appear quite another thing....
One gallant action, therefore, ought not to conclude a man valiant; if a man were brave indeed, he would always be so, and upon all occasions. If it were a habit of valor and not a sally, it would render a man equally resolute in all accidents; the same alone as in company; the same in lists as in a battle: for, let them say what they will, there is not one valor for the pavement and another for the field; he would bear a sickness in his bed as bravely as a wound in the field; and no more fear death in his own house than at an assault. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II. 1, 1588.

Who but must conclude that these are wild sallies pushed on by a courage that has broken loose from its place. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.3, 1588.

I very well know that several virtues, as chastity, sobriety, and temperance, may come to a man through personal defects. Constancy in danger, if it must be so called, the contempt of death, and patience in misfortunes, may ofttimes be found in men for want of well judging of such accidents, and not apprehending them for such as they are. Want of apprehension and stupidity sometimes counterfeit virtuous effects: as I have often seen it happen, that men have been commended for what really merited blame.... For this reason is that, when we judge of a particular action, we are to consider the circumstances, and the whole man by whom it is performed, before we give it a name. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.11, 1588.

Over-circumspect and wary prudence is a mortal enemy to all high and generous exploits. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I. 23, , 1588.

You stake... your valor and your fortune upon that of your horse; his wounds or death bring your person into the same danger; his fears or fury shall make you reputed rash or cowardly; if he have an ill mouth, or will not answer to the spur, your honour must answer for it. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I. 48, , 1588.

Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again. ‘Tis a vivid and strong tincture which, when the soul has once thoroughly imbibed it, will not out but with the piece. And, therefore, to make a right judgement of a man, we are long and very observingly to follow his trace: if constancy does not there stand firm upon her proper base, “If the way of his life is thoroughly considered and traced out,” [Cicero] if the variety of occurrences makes him alter his pace (his path, I mean, for the pace may be faster or slower) let him go; such a one runs before the wind. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.1, 1588.

Since ambition can teach men valor, temperance, and liberality, and even justice too; seeing that avarice can inspire the courage of a shop-boy, bred and nursed up in obscurity and ease, with the assurance to expose himself so far from the fireside to the mercy of the waves and angry Neptune in a frail boat; that she further teaches discretion and prudence; and that even Venus can inflate boys under the discipline of the rod with boldness and resolution, and infuse masculine courage into the hearts of tender virgins in their mother’s arms... ‘tis not all the understanding has to do, simply to judge us by our outward actions; it must penetrate the very soul, and there discover by what springs the motion is guided. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.1, 1588.

He who confers a benefit exercises a fine and honest action; he who receives it exercises the useful only. Now the useful is much less loveable than the honest; the honest is stable and permanent, supplying him who has done it with a continual gratification. The useful loses itself, easily slides away, and the memory of it is neither so fresh nor so pleasing. Those things are dearest to us that have cost us most, and giving is more chargeable than receiving. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk. II.8, 1588.

I never yet saw that father, but let his son be never so decrepit or deformed, would not, notwithstanding, own him: not, nevertheless, if he were not totally besotted, and blinded with his paternal affection, that he did not well enough discern his defects: but that with all defaults, he was still his. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I. 25, , 1588.

Now, to consider this simple reason for loving our children, that we have begot them, therefore calling them our second selves, it appears, methinks, that there is another kind of production proceeding from us, that is of not less recommendation: for that which we engender by the soul, the issue of our understanding, courage, and abilities, springs from nobler parts than those of the body, and that are so much more our own: we are both father and mother in this generation. These cost us a great deal more and bring more honour, if they have anything of good in them. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.8, , 1588.

Not every country only, but every city, and every society, has its particular forms of civility. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays Bk I, #13, 1588.

Who is it, that seeing the havoc of these civil wars of ours, does not cry out, that the machine of the world is near dissolution, and that the day of judgement is at hand; without considering, that many worse things have been seen, and that, in the meantime, people are very merry in a thousand other parts of the earth. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I. 25, , 1588.

Pity is reputed a vice among the Stoics, who will that we succour the afflicted, but not that we should be so affected with their sufferings as to suffer with them.... It may be true that to suffer a man’s heart to be totally subdued by compassion may be facility. effeminacy, and over-tenderness; whence it comes to pass that the weaker natures, as of women, children, and the common sort of people, are the most subject to it; but after having resisted and disdained the power of groans and tears, to yield to the sole reverence of the sacred image of Valour, this can be no other than the effect of a strong and inflexible soul enamoured of and honouring masculine and obstinate courage. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I. 2, 1588.

Compassion and bewailing seem to imply some esteem of and value for the thing bemoaned; whereas the things we laugh at are by that expressed to be of no moment. I do not think that we are so unhappy as we are vain, or have in us so much malice as folly; we are not so full of mischief as insanity; nor so miserable as we are vile and mean. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I. 50, , 1588.

The part that true conquering is to play, lies in the encounter, not in the coming off; and the honor of valour consists in fighting, not in subduing. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I. 30, 1588.

So wonderful is the power of conscience. It makes us betray, accuse, and fight against ourselves, and for want of other witnesses, to give evidence against ourselves. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.4, 1588.

As an ill conscience fills us with fear, so a good one gives us greater confidence and assurance. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.4, 1588.

At the same time that men take delight in vice, there springs in the conscience a displeasure that afflicts us sleeping and waking with various tormenting imaginations. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.5, 1588.

Human understanding is marvelously 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. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.27, 1588.

But as to cowardice, it is certain that the most usual way of chastising it is by ignominy. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.15, 1588.

Silence, therefore, and modesty are very advantageous qualities in conversation. One should, therefore, train up his boy to be sparing and a husband of his knowledge when he has acquired it; and to forbear taking exceptions at or reproving every idle saying or ridiculous story that is said or told in his presence; for it is a very unbecoming rudeness to carp at everything that is not agreeable to our own palate. Let him be satisfied with correcting himself. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

To reprehend the faults in others that I am guilty of myself, appears to me no more unreasonable, than to condemn, as I often do, those of others in myself: they are to be everywhere reproved, and ought to have no sanctuary allowed them. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

I live in a time wherein we abound in incredible examples of... vice, through the licence of our civil wars; and we see nothing in ancient histories more extreme than what we have proof of every day, but I cannot, any the more, get used to it. I could hardly persuade myself, before I saw it with my own eyes, that there could be found souls so cruel and fell, who, for the soul pleasure of murder, would commit it; would hack and lop off the limbs of others; sharpen their wits to invent unusual torments and new kinds of death, without hatred, without profit, and for no other end but only to enjoy the pleasant spectacle of the gestures and motions, the lamentable groans and cries of a man dying in anguish. For this is the utmost point to which cruelty can arrive. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.11, 1588.

The novelty, rather than the greatness of things, tempts us to inquire into their causes. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.26, 1588.

For, in truth, custom is a violent and treacherous schoolmistress. She by little and little, 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. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.22, 1588.

Seek to oppress [men] and it is sometimes proof of regarding them with esteem; depreciate their customs, it is always a mark of contempt. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1588.

Those who preach to princes so circumspect and vigilant a jealousy and distrust, under color of security, preach to them ruin and dishonor; nothing noble can be performed without danger. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.23, 1588.

For my part, I shall take care, if I can, that my death discover nothing that my life has not first and openly declared. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.7, 1588.

Young and old die upon the same terms; none departs out of life otherwise than if he had but just before entered into it; neither is any man so old and decrepit, who, having heard of Methuselah, does not think he has yet twenty years good to come. Fool that thou art, who has assured unto thee the term of life? - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.19, 1588.

Where death waits for us is uncertain; let us look for him everywhere. The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learned to die, has unlearned to serve. There is nothing of evil in life, for him who rightly comprehends that the privation of life is no evil: to know how to die, delivers us from all subjection and constraint. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.19, 1588.

What an idle conceit it is to expect to die of a decay of strength, which is the effect of extremest age, and to propose to ourselves no shorter lease of life than that, considering that it is a kind of death of all others the most rare and seldom seen? We call that only a natural death; as if it were contrary to nature to see a man break his neck with a fall, be drowned in shipwreck, be snatched away with a pleurisy or the plague, and as if our ordinary condition did not expose us to these inconveniences. Let us no longer flatter ourselves with these words; we ought rather, peradventure, to call that natural, which is general, common, and universal. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.57, 1588.

The most voluntary death is the finest. Life depends upon the pleasure of others; death upon our own. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.3, 1588.

Endeavoring to evade death, we often run into its very mouth. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.3, 1588.

Men sometimes covet death out of hope of a greater good. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.4, 1588.

But in dying, which is the greatest work we have to do, practice can give us no assistance at all. A man may by custom fortify himself against pain, shame, necessity, and such like accidents, but, as to death, we can experiment it but once, and are all apprentices when we come to it. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.6, 1588.

Every death ought to hold proportion with the life before it; we do not become others for dying. I always interpret the death by the life preceding; and if any one tell me of a death strong and constant in appearance, annexed to a feeble life, I conclude it produced by some feeble cause, and suitable to the life before. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.11, 1588.

We suffer ourselves to lean and rely so strongly upon the arm of another, that we destroy our own strength and vigor. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

Who follows another, follows nothing, finds nothing, nay, is inquisitive after nothing. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

The public weal requires that a man should betray, and lie, and massacre. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1588.

When Agesilaus courted Xenophon to send his children to Sparta to be bred, "it is not," said he, "there to learn logic or rhetoric, but to be instructed in the noblest of all sciences, namely, the science to obey, and to command." - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

I see some who are mightily given to study and comment upon their almanacs, and produce them for authority when anything has fallen out pat; and, for that matter, it is hardly possible but that these alleged authorities sometimes stumble upon a truth amongst an infinite number of lies. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.11, 1588.

Excesses excepted, 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, and in the very beginning of acquaintance; and, consequently, that which first opens the door and intromits us to instruct ourselves by the example of others, and to give examples ourselves, if we have any worth taking notice of and communicating. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.13, 1588.

He who should teach men to die, would at the same time teach them to live. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.19, 1588.

We should rather examine, who is better learned, than who is more learned. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

Dionysius laughed at the grammarians, who cudgelled their brains to inquire into the miseries of Ulysses, and were ignorant of their own; at musicians, who were so exact in tuning their instruments, and never tuned their manners; at orators, who made it a study to declare what is justice, but never took care to do it. If the mind is not better disposed, if the judgement be no better settled, I had much rather my scholar had spent his time at tennis, for, at least, his body would by that means be in better exercise and breath. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

Examples have demonstrated to us, that in military affairs, and all others of the like active nature, the study of sciences more softens and untempers the courages of men, than it in any way fortifies and excites them. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

As plants are suffocated and drowned with too much nourishment, and lamps with too much oil, so with too much study and matter is the active part of understanding which, being embarrassed, and confounded with a great diversity of things, loses the force and power to disengage itself, and, by the pressure of this weight, is bowed, subjected and doubled up. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

We are not to tie learning to the soul, but to work and incorporate them together; not to tincture it only, but to give it a thorough and perfect die; which, if it will not take colour, and meliorate its imperfect state, it were without question better to let it alone. 'Tis a dangerous weapon, that will hinder and wound its master, if put into an awkward and unskilfull hand: so that it were better never to have learned at all. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

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. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.27, 1588.

The first doctrine with which one should season his understanding, ought to be that which regulates his manners and his sense; that teaches him to know himself. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

Let him examine every man's talent; a peasant, a bricklayer, a passenger: one may learn something from everyone of these in their several capacities and something will be picked out of their discourse whereof some use may be made at one time or another; nay, even the folly and impertinence of others will contribute to his instruction. By observing the graces and manners of all he sees, he will create to himself an emulation of the good, and a contempt of the bad.- Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

That the greatest and most important difficulty of human science is the education of children. For as in agriculture, the husbandry that is to proceed planting, as also planting itself, is certain, plain, and well known; but after that which is planted comes to life, there is a great deal more to be done, more art to be used, more care to be taken, and much more difficulty to cultivate and bring it to perfection: so it is with men; 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. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

Let the master not only examine him about the gramatical construction of the bare words of his lesson, but about the sense and substance of them, and let him judge of the profit he has made, not by the testimony of his memory, but by that of his life. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

'Tis the custom of pedagogues to be eternally thundering in their pupil's ears, as they were pouring into a funnel, whilst the business of the pupil is only to repeat what the others have said. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

I would that a boy should be sent abroad very young, and first, so as to kill two birds with one stone, into those neighbouring nations whose language is most differing from our own, and to which, if it be not formed betimes, the tongue will grow too stiff to bend. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

A boy is to be broken into the toil and roughness of exercise, so as to be trained up to the pain and suffering of dislocations, cholics, cauteries, and even imprisonment and the rack itself; for he may come, by misfortune, to be reduced to the worst of these, which (as this world goes) is sometimes inflicted on the good as well as the bad. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

The advantages of our study are to become better and more wise. 'Tis, says Epicharmus, the understanding that sees and hears, 'tis the understanding that improves everything, that orders everything, and that acts, rules, and reigns: all other faculties are blind, and deaf, and without soul. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

They are best taught, who are best able to control and curb their own liberty. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I, #29, 1588.

Eloquence most flourished at Rome when when the public affairs were in the worst condition and most disquieted with intestine commotions; as a free and untilled soil bears the worst weeds. By which it should seem that a monarchical government has less need of it than any other: for the stupidity and facility natural to the common people, and that render them subject to be turned and twined and led by the ears by this charming harmony of words, without weighing or considering the truth and reality of things by the force of reason: this facility, I say, is not easily found in a single person, and it is also more easy by good education and advice to secure him from the impression of this poison. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.52, 1588.

I condemn all violence in the education of a tender soul that is designed for honour and liberty. There is I know not what of servile in rigour and constraint; and I am of opinion that what is not to be done by reason, prudence, and address, is never to be affected by force. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.8, 1588.

I seek, in the reading of books, only to please myself, by an honest diversion; or, if I study, 'tis for no other science than what treats of the knowledge of myself, and instructs me how to die and live well. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.10, 1588.

There is still more understanding required in the teaching of others than in being taught. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.12, 1588.

Learning is, in truth, a very useful and a very considerable quality; such as despise it merely discover their own folly.... others have said, that learning is the mother of all virtue, and that all vice proceeds from ignorance. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.12, 1588.

Our mind is a wandering, dangerous, and temerious tool; it is hard to couple any order or measure to it; and in my time, those who are endued with some rare excellence above others, or any extraordinary vivacity of understanding, we see almost all of them lash out into licence of opinions and manners; 'tis almost a miracle to find one temperate and socially tractable. There's all the reason in the world to limit the human mind within the strictest limits possible: in study, as in all the rest, we ought to have it's steps and advances numbered and fixed, and that the limits of its inquisition be bounded by art. It is curbed and fettered by religions, laws, customs, sciences, precepts, mortal and immortal penalties and rewards; and yet we see that by its volubility and dissolvability it escapes from all these bounds; 'tis a vain body which has nothing to lay hold on; or to seize a various and difform body, incapable of being either bound or held. Truly, there are few souls so regular, firm, and well descended, that are to be trusted with their own conduct, and that can, with moderation, and without temerity, sail in the liberty of their own judgements, beyond the common and received opinions: 'tis more expedient to put them under pupilage. The mind is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not discreetly how to use it. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.12, 1588.

That eloquence prejudices the subject it would advance, that wholly attracts us to itself. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

To hear men talk of metronomies, metaphors, and allegories, and other grammer words, would not one think they signified some rare and exotic form of speaking? And yet they are phrases that are no better than the chatter of my chambermaid. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.52, 1588.

Make him understand, that to acknowledge the error he shall discover in his own argument, though only found out by himself, is an effect of judgement and sincerity, which are the principal things he is to seek after; that obstinacy and contention are common qualities, most appearing in mean souls; that to revise and correct himself, to forsake an unjust argument in the height and heat of dispute, are rare, great, and philosophical qualities. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

Virtuous men do good by setting themselves up as models before the public, but I do good by setting myself up as a warning. - Michel de Montaigne.

In fine, there is no pleasure so just and lawful, where intemperance and excess are not to be condemned. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.29, 1588.

The archer that shoots over, misses as much as he that falls short, and 'tis equally troublesome to my sight to look up at a great light, and to look down into a dark abyss. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.29, 1588.

A father is very miserable who has no other hold on his children's affection than the need they have of assistance, if that can be called affection; he must render himself worthy to be respected by his virtue and wisdom, and beloved by his kindness and the sweetness of his manners; even the very ashes of a rich matter have their value; and we are want to have the bones and relics of worthy men in regard and reverance. No old age can be so decrepid in a man who has passed life in honor, but it must be venerable, especially to his children, whose soul he must have trained up to their duty by reason, not by necessity and the need they have of him, nor by harshness and compulsion. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.8, 1588.

So vain and futile a thing is human prudence; throughout all our projects, counsels and precautions, fortune will still be mistriss of events. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.23, 1588.

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1588.

The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, that passion alone, in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.27, 1588.

Let us begin with that which makes us free. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk. I.25, 1588.

Excess, it enslaves our natural freedom, and, by an impertinent subtlety, leads us out of the fair and beaten way that nature has traced for us. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk. I.25, 1588.

I am apt enough to forget many things, but to neglect anything my friend has given me in charge, I never do it. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.9, 1588.

Friendship is nourished by communication. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.26, 1588.

Friendship... is enjoyed proportionaly as it is desired; and only grows up, is nourished and improves by enjoyment, as being of itself spiritual, and the soul growing still more refined by practice. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.27, 1588.

For the rest, what we commonly call friends and friendships, are nothing but acquaintance and familiarities, either occassionally contracted, or upon some design, by means of which there happens some little intercourse betwixt our souls. But in the friendship I speak of, they mix and work themselves into one piece, with so universal a mixture, that there is no more sign of the seam by which they were first conjoined. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.27, 1588.

The archer ought first to know at what he is to aim, and then accommodate his arm, bow, string, shaft and motion to it; our counsels deviate and wander, becasue not levelled to any determinate end. No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain point. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.1, 1588.

Let him be able to do everything, but love to do nothing but what is good. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

Well-governed corporations take care to assemble their citizens, not only to the solemn duties of devotion, but also to sports and spectacles. They find society and friendship augmented by it; and, besides, can there possible be allowed a more orderly and regular diversion than what is performed in the sight of every one, and, very often, in the presence of the supreme magistrate himself? And I, for my part, should think it reasonable, that the prince should sometimes gratify his people at his own expense, out of paternal goodness and affection; and that in populous cities there should be theaters erected for such entertainments, if but to divert them from worse and private actions. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

The Corruption of every government generally begins with that of its principles. - Montesqieu. The Spirit of the Laws, 1748.

Virtue is necessary in a popular government. - Montesqieu. The Spirit of the Laws, 1748.

I am afraid our eyes are bigger than our bellies, and that we have more curiosity than capacity; for we grasp at all, but catch nothing but wind. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.30, 1588.

Of what use are colours to him that knows not what he is to paint? - Michel de Montaigne<, Essays, Bk II.1, 1588.

A man makes a judgement of a horse, not only by seing him when he is showing off his paces, but by his very walk, nay, and by seeing him stand in the stable. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.50, 1588.

For many faults escape our eye, but the infirmity of judgement consists in not being able to discern them when, by another [means they are] laid open to us. Knowledge and truth may be in without judgement, and judgement also without them; but the confession of ignorance is noe of the finest and surest testimonies of judgement that I know. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.10, 1588.

No human judgement is so vigilant that it does not sometimes sleep. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.12, 1588.

I very well know that several virtues, as chastity, sobriety, and temperence, may come to a man through personal defects. Constancy in danger, if it must be so called, the contempt of death, and patience in misfortunes, may oftimes be found in men for want of well judging of such accidents, and not apprehending them for such as they are. Want of apprehension and stupidity sometimes counterfeit virtuous effects: as I have often seen it happen, that men have been commended for what realy merited blame.... For this reason is that, when we judge of a particular action, we are to consider the circumstances, and the whole man by whom it is performed, before we give it a name. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.11, 1588.

What can be more savage, than to see a nation where, by lawful custom, the office of a judge is bought and sold, where judgements are paid for with ready money, and where justice may legitimately be denied to him that has not wherewithal to pay; a merchandise in so great repute, as in a government to create a fourth estate of wrangling lawyers, to add to the three ancient ones of the church, nobility, and people. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.22, 1588.

This is a subtle consideration of philosophy. A man may both be too much in love with virtue, and be excessive in just action. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.29, 1588.

All knowledge is hurtful to him who has not the science of goodness. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

For it is not for knowledge to enlighten a soul that is dark of itself, nor to make a blind man see. Her business is not to find a man’s eyes, but to guide, govern, and direct them, provided he have sound feet and straight legs to go upon. Knowledge is an excelent 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. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

In truth, knowledge is not so absolutely necessary as judgement; the last may make shift without the other, but the other never without this. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

We are, I conceive, knowing only in present knowledge, and not at all in what is past, no more than in that which is to come. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

We take other men’s knowledge and opinions upon trust; which is an idle and superficial learning, we must make it our own. We are in this very like him who, having need of fire, went to a neighbour’s house to fetch it, and finding a very good one there, sat down to warm himself without remembering to carry any with him home. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

We only labour to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void. Like birds who fly abroad to forage for grain, and bring it home in the beak, without tasting it themselves, to feel their young; so our pedants go picking knowledge here and there, out of books, and hold it at the tongue’s end, only to spit it out and distribute it abroad. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

To know by rote is no knowledge, and signifies no more but only to retain what one has intrusted to our memory. That which a man rightly knows and understands, he is the free disposer of at his own full liberty, without any regard to the author from whence he had it or fumbing over the leaves of his book. A mere bookish learning is a poor, paltry learning; it may serve for ornament, but there is yet no foundation for any superstructure to be built upon it. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

Let us but consider through what clouds, and as it were groping in the dark, our teachers lead us to the knowledge of most of the things about us. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.26, 1588.

He that had never seen a river, imagined the first he met with to be the sea; and the greatest things that have fallen within our knowledge, we conclude the extremes that nature makes of the kind. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.26, 1588.

Even pleasure and good fortune are not relished without understanding. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.42, 1588.

A man may say with some color of truth that there is an Abecedarian ignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes after it; an ignorance that knowledge creates and begets, at the same time that it despatches and destroys the first. Of mean understandings, little inquisitive, and little instructed, are made good Christains, who by reverence and obedience simply believe and are constant in their belief. In the average understandings and the middle sort of capacities, the error of opinion is begotten; they follow the appearance of the first impression, and have some colour of reason on their side to impute our walking on in the old beaten path of simplicitly and stupidity, meaning us who have not informed ourselves by study. The higher and nobler souls, more solid and clear-sighted make up another sort of true believers, who by a long and religious investigation of truth, have obtained a clearer and more penetrating light into the Scriptures, and have discovered the mysterious and divine secret of our ecclesiastical polity; and yet we see some, who by the middle step, have arrived at that supreme degree with marvellous fruit and comfirmation, as to the utmost limit of Christain intelligence, and enjoy their victory with great spiritual consolation, humble acknowledgement of the divine favor, reformation of manners, and singular modesty. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.54, 1588.

I could wish to have a more perfect knowledge of things, but I will not buy it so dear as it costs. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.10, 1588.

Whoever goes in quest knowledge, let him fish for it where it is to be found. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.10, 1588.

But ‘tis hard to limit our mind; ‘tis inquisitive and greedy, and will no more stop at a thousand, than at fifty paces; having experimentally found that, wherein one man has failed, another has hit; that what was unkown to one age, the age following has explained; and that arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are formed and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing, as bears liesurely lick their cubs into shape; what my force cannot discover, I do not yet desist to sound and to try; and, handling and kneading this new matter over and over again, turning and heating it, I lay open to him, that shall succeed me, a kind of facility to enjoy it more at his ease, and make it more manageable and supple for him.... as much will the second do to the third, which is the reason that difficulty ought not to make me despair; and my own incapacity as little; for ‘tis only my own. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.12, 1588.

For this reason it is that I complain of our laws, not that they keep us too long to our work, but that they set us to work too late. For the frailty of life considered, and to how many ordinary and natural rocks it is exposed, one ought not to give up so large a portion of it to childhood, idleness, and apprenticeship. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.57, 1588.

The imitation of words, by its own facility, immediately disperses itself through a whole people; but the imitation of inventing and fitly applying those words, is of slower progress. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

What can be more strange than to see a people obliged to obey laws they never understand. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1588.

It is a very great doubt, whether any so manifest benefit can accrue from the alteration of a law received, let it be what it will, as there is danger and inconvenience in altering it; forasmuch as government is a structure composed of diverse parts and members joined and united together, with so strict connection, that it is impossible to stir so much as one brick or stone, but the whole body be sensible of it. The legislator of the Thurians ordained, that whosoever would go about either to abolish an aol law, or to establish a new, should present himself with a halter about his neck to the people to the end, that if the innovation he would introduce should not be approved byb everyone: he might immediately be hanged; and he of the Lacedaemonians employed his life to obtain from his citizens a faithful promise, that none of his laws should be violated. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk. I.22, 1588.

There is a vast difference betwixt the case of one who follows the forms and laws of his country, and of another who will undertake to regulate and change them; of whom the first pleads simplicity, obedience, and example for his excuse, who, whatever he shall do, it cannot be imputed to malice; 'tis at the worst but misfortune:... the other is a much more ruffling gamester; for whosoever shall take upon him to choose and alter, usurps the authority of judging, and should look well about him, and make it his business to discern clearly the defect of what he would abolish, and the virtue of what he is about to introduce. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk. I.22, 1588.

The most desirable laws are those that are rarest, simplest, and most general; and I even think that it would be better to have none at all than to have them in such numbers as we have. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk. I.54, 1588.

He who should teach men to die, would at the same time teach them to live. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.19, 1588.

There is no reason we should deny the expression of our real opinions to our own liberty and common justice. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.3, 1588.

Such people as have been bred up to liberty, and subject to no other dominion but the authority of their own will, look upon all other forms of government as monstrous and contrary to nature. Those who are inured to monarchy do the same; and what opportunity soever fortune presents them with a change, even then, when with the greatest difficulties they have disengaged themselves from one master, that was troublesome and grievous to them, they presently run, with the same difficulties, to create another; being unable to take into hatred subjection itself. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I,22, 1588.

They are best taught, who are best able to control and curb their own liberty. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.29, 1588.

Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1588.

In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon one another, but by our word. If we did but discover the horror and gravity of it, we should pursue it with fire and sword, and more justly than other crimes. I see that parents commonly, and with indiscretion enough, correct their children for little innocent faults, and torment them for wanton tricks, that have neither impression nor consequence; whereas, in my opinion, lying only, and which is something of a lower form, obstinacy, are faults which are to be severely whipped out of them, both in their infancy and in their progress, otherwise they grow up and increase with them; and after a tongue has got the knack of lying, 'tis not to be imagined how impossible it is to reclaim it. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.9, 1588.

Wherever your life ends, it is all there. 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. Make use of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to have a sufficient length of life. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.19, 1588.

Living is slavery if the liberty of dying be wanting. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.3, 1588.

The wise man lives as long as he ought, not as long as he can; and that the most obliging present nature has made us, and which takes from us all colour of complaint of our conditions, is not only to have delivered into our own custody the keys of life, but a hundred thousand ways out. We may be straightened for earth to live upon, but earth sufficient to die upon can never be wanting. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.3, 1588.

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in? - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men: Montaigne, 1850.

The magazine of the memory is ever better furnished with matter than that of the invention. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk,I, #9. 1588.

For experience, rather, daily shows us, on the contrary, that a strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgement. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk,I, #9. 1588.

I find that there is nothing barbarous and savage in this nation, by anything that I can gather, excepting, that everyone givves the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country. As, indeed, we have no other level of truth and reason than the example and idea of the opinions and customs of the place wherein we live: there is always the perfect relligion, there the perfect government, there the most exact and accomplished usage of all things. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I, #30, 1588.

I let Nature work, supposing her to be sufficiently armed with teeth and claws to defend herself from the assaults of infirmity, and to uphold that contexture, the dissolution of which she flies and abhors. I am afraid, lest, instead of assisting her when close grappled and strugglling with disease, I should assist her adversary, and burden her still more with work to do. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.23. 1588.

Nature can do all, and does all. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24. 1588.

Bees cull their several sweets from this flower and that blossom, here and there where they find them, but themselves afterwords make the honey, which is all and purely their won, and no more thyme and marjoram. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25. 1588.

But rivers alter their course, sometimes beating against the one side, and sometimes the other, and sometimes quietly keeping the channel. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.30. 1588.

The public good requires us to betray, and to lie, and to massacre: let us resign this commission to those who are more pliable, and more obedient. - Michel de Montaigne.

The indiscreet scribblers of our times, who, amongst their laborious nothings, insert whole sections and pages out of authors, with a design, by that means, to illustrate their own writings, do quite contrary; for this infinite dissimiltude of ornaments renders the complexion of their own compositions so sallow and deformed, that they lose much more than they got. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

If I am a man of some reading, I am a man of no retention; so that I can promise no certainty, more than to make known to what point the knowledge I now have has risen. Therefore, let none lay stress upon the matter I write, but upon my method in writing it. Let them observe, in what I borrow, if I have known how to choose what is proper to raise or help the invention, which is always my own. For I make others say for me, not before but after me, what, either for want of language or want of sense, I cannot myself so well express. I do not number my borrowings, I weigh them; and had I designed to raise their value by numbers, I had made them twice as many; they are all, or within a very few, so famed and ancient authors, that they seem, methinks, themselves sufficiently to tell who they are, without giving me the trouble.... I must shelter my own weakness under these great reputations. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.10, 1588.

It just now came into my mind, whence it is we should derive that error of having recourse to God in all our designs and enterprises, to call Him to our assistance in all sorts of affairs, and in all places where our weakness stands in need of support, without considering whether the occasion be just or otherwise; and to invoke His name and power, in what state soever we are, or action we are engaged in, howsoever vicious. He is, indeed, our sole and unique protector, and can do all things for us: but though He is pleased to honor us with his sweet paternal alliance, He is, not withstanding, as just as he is good and mighty; and more often exercises His justice than His power, and favors us accordiing to that, and not according to our petitions. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.56, 1588.

A true prayer and religious reconciling of ourselves to Almighty god cannot enter into an impure soul, subject at the very time to to the dominion of Satan. He who calls God to his assistance whilst in a course of vice, does as if a cut-purse should call the magistrate to help him, or like those who introduce the name of god to the attestation of a lie. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.56, 1588.

God’s justice and his power are inseparable; ‘tis in vain we invoke his power in an unjust cause. We are to have our souls pure and clean, at that moment at least wherein we pray to Him, and purified from all vicious passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewith to chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, we double the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom we are to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.56, 1588.

God owes His extraordinary assistance to faith and religion, not to our passions: men are the conductors and herein make use of their own purposes of religion; it ought to be quite contrary. Observe if it be not by our own hands that we guide and train it, and draw it, like wax, into so many figures, at variance with a rule in itself so direct and firm. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.12, 1588.

If we held upon God by the meditation of a lively faith; if we had a divine basis and foundation, human accidents would not have the powerto shake us as they do; our fortress would not surrender to so weak a battery; the love of novelty, the constraint of princes, the success of one party, the rash and fortuitous changes of our opinions, would not have the power to stagger and alter our belief. We should not then leave it to the mercy of every novel argument, nor abandon it to the persuasions of all the rhetoric in the world; we should withstand the fury of these waves with an unmoved and unyielding constancy. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.12, 1588.

They who give the first shock to a state, are almost naturally the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first motor; e beats and disturbs the water for another's net. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk.I, #22, 1588.

But as to cowardice, it is certain that the most usual way of chastising it is by ignominy. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.15, 1588.

Excess, it enslaves our natural freedom, and, by an impertinent subtlety, leads us out of the fair and beaten way that nature has traced for us. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, I. 25. 1588.

Assuredly it can be no easy task to rule others, when we find it so hard a matter to govern ourselves. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, I. 42. 1588.

We do not go, we are driven; like things that float, now leisurely then with violence, according to the gentleness or rapidity of the current. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, I. 1, 1588.

I am of opinion that a man must be very cautious how he values himself, and equally conscientious to give a true report, be it better or worse, impartially.... To speak less of one’s-self than what one really is, is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current pay, which is under a man’s value, is pusillanimity and cowardice.... No virtue assists itself with falsehood; truth is never a matter of error. To speak more of one’s self than is realy true, is not always mere presumption; ‘tis, moreover, very often folly; to be immeasurably pleased with what one is, and to fall into an indiscrete self-love, is in my opinion the substance of this vice. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk. II. 6, 1588.

If a man does not know himself, how should he know his functions and powers? - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II. 12, 1588.

Public society has nothing to do with our thoughts, but the rest, as our actions, our labors, our fortunes, and our lives, we are to lend and abandon them to its service, and to the common opinion; as did that good and great Socrates who refused to preserve his life by disobedience to the magistrate, though a very wicked and unjust one. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk.I, #22. 1588.

The world is nothing but babble; and I hardly ever yet saw that man who did not rather prate too much, than speak too little. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

As I do not offend the law against thieves when I embezzle my own money and cut my own purse; nor that against incindiaries when I burn my own wood; so I am not under the lash of those made against murderers for having deprived myself of my own life. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.3, 1588.

All the inconveniences in the world are not considerable enough that a man should die to evade them; and, besides, there being so many, so sudden and unexpected changes in human things, it is hard rightly to judge when we are at the end of our hope. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.3, 1588.

Cubs of bears and puppies readily discover their natural inclination; but men, so soon as ever they are grown up, applying themselves to certain habits, engaging themselves in certain opinions, and confirming themselves to particular laws and customs, easily alter, or at least disguise, their true and real disposition; and yet it is hard to force the propension of nature. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

The putting men to the rack is a dangerous invention, and seems to be rather a trial of patience than truth. Both he who has the fortitude to endure it conceals the truth, and he who has not: for why should pain sooner make me confess what really is, than force me to say what is not? And, on the contrary, if he who is not guilty of that whereof he is accused, has the courage to undergo those torments, why should not he who is guilty have the same, so fair a reward as life being in his prospect?... Whence it comes to pass, that him whom the judge has racked that he may not die innocent, he makes him die both innocent and racked. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.5, 1588.

Our minds work only upon trust, when bound and compelledto follow the appetite of another's fancy, enslaved and captivated under the authority of instruction; we have been so subjected to the trammel, that we have not free, nor natural pace of our own; our own vigor and liberty are extinct and gone: they are ever in wardship. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

Truth and reason are common to every one, and are no more his who spoke them first, than his who speaks them after: 'tis no more according to Plato, than according to me, since both he and I equally see and understand them. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

No virtue assists itself with falsehood; truth is never a matter of error. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk. II. 6, 1588.

Plato, indeed... defines a tyrant to be one who in a city has licence to do whatever his own will leads him to do; and by reason of this impunity, the display and publication of their vices do ofttimes more mischief than vice itself. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.42, 1588.

To what vanity does the good opinion we have of ourselves push us? The most regular and most perfect soul in the world has but too much to do to keep itself upright, and from being overthrown by its own weakness. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I, 1588.

All which they do, to no other end, but only to extort some gentle or submissive word from them, or to frighten them so as to make them run away, to obtain this advantage that they were terrified, and that their constancy was shaken; and indeed, if rightly taken, it is in this point only that a true victory consists. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.30, 1588.

If their neighbors pass over the mountains to assault them, and obtain a victory, al the victors gain by its glory only, and the advantage of having proved themselves the better in valour and virtue: for they never meddle with the goods of the conquered, but presently return into their own country, where they have no want of anything necessary, nor of this greatest of all goods, to know happily how to enjoy their condition and to be content. And those in turn do the same; they demand of their prisoners no other ransom, than acknowledgement that they are overcome: but there is not one found in an age, who will not rather choose to die than make such a confession, or either by word or look, recede from the entire grandeur of an invincible courage. There is not a man amongst them who had not rather be killed and eaten, than do so much as to open his mouth to entreat he may not. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.30, 1588.

This is a subtle consideration of philosophy. A man may both be too much in love with virtue, and be excessive in just action. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.29, 1588.

As if we had an infectious touch, we, by our manners of handing, corrupt things that in themselves are laudable and good: we may grasp virtue so that it becomes vicious, if we embrace it too stringently and with too violent a desire. Those who say there is never any excess in virtue, forasmuch as it is not virtue when it once becomes excess, only play upon words. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.29, 1588.

Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again. ‘Tis a vivid and strong tincture which, when the soul has once thoroughly imbibed it, will not out but with the piece. And, therefore, to make a right judgement of a man, we are long and very observingly to folow his trace: if constancy does not there stand firm upon her proper base, “If the way of his life is thoroughly considered and traced out,” [Cicero] if the variety of occurances makes him alter his pace (his path, I mean, for the pace may be faster or slower) let him go; such a one runs before the wind. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.1, 1588.

If virtue cannot shine bright, but by the conflict of contrary aooetites, 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 honour? - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.11, 1588.

virtue refuses facility for a companion; and that the easy, smooth, and descending way by which the regular steps of sweet disposition of nature are conducted is not that of a true virtue; she requires a rough and stormy passage. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.11, 1588.

I fancy virtue to be something wlse, and something more noble, than good nature, and the mere propension to goodness, that we are born into the world withal. Well-disposed and well-descended souls pursue, indeed, the same methods, represent in their actions the same face that virtue itself does: but the word virtue imports something more great and active than merely for a man to suffer himself, by a happy disposition, to be gently and quietly drawn to the rule of reason. He who, by a natural sweetness and facility, should despise injuries received, would, doubtess, do a very fine and laudable thing; but he who, provoked and nettled to the quick by an offence, should fortify himself with the arms of reason against the furious appetite of revenge, and, after a great conflict, master his own passion, would certainly do a great deal more. The first would do well; the latter virtuously: one action might be called goodness, and the other virtue. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.11, 1588.

And, doubtless, war has naturally many priviledges that appear reasonable even to the prejudice of reason. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.7, 1588.

When I closely examine the most glorious exploits of war, I perceive, methinks, that those who carry them on make use of counsel and debate only for custom's sake, and leave the best part of the enterprise to Fortune, and relying upon her aid, transgress, at every turn, the bounds of military conduct and the rules of war. Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.23, 1588.

As to military enterprises, every one sees how great a hand Fortune has in them. Even in our counsels and deliberations there must, certainly, be something of chance and good-luck mixed with human prudence; for all that our wisdom can do alone is no great matter; the more piercing, quick, and apprehensive it is, the weaker it finds itself, and is by so much more apt to mistrust itself. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.23, 1588.

The most warlike nations at this time in being are the most rude and ignorant. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.24, 1588.

A man may reppose more confidence in a sword he holds in his hand than in a bullet he discharges out of a pistol, wherein there must be a concurrence of several circumstances to make it perform its office, the powder, the stone, and the wheel: if any of which fail it endangers your fortune. A man himself strikes much surer than the air can direct his blow, - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.48, 1588.

A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1588.

The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.25, 1588.

Tis a foolish presumption to slight and condemn all things for false that do not appear to us probable; which is the ordinary vice of such as fancy themselves wiser than their neighbors. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.26, 1588.

Be not wiser than you should, but be soberly wise. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.29, 1588.

Wisdom does not force our natural dispositions. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.2, 1588.

After a man has once done a woman right, he is ever after in danger of misbehaving himself with that person, unless upon the acount of some excusable weakness. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.20, 1588.

Women are evermore addicted to cross their husbands: they lay hold with both hands on all occasions to contradict and oppose them; the first excuse serves for a plenary justification. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.8, 1588.

It costs an unreasonable woman no more to pass over one reason than another; they cherish themselves most where they are most wrong. Injustice allures them, as the honor of their virtuous actions does the good; and the more riches they bring with them, they are so much the more good natured, as women, who are handsome, are all the more inclined and proud to be chaste. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk II.8, 1588.

A noble farce, wherein kinds, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays: Of the most Excellent Men, 1588.

...as a common theme that has been tumbled and tossed by a thousand writers. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.27, 1588.

I would have everyone write what he knows, and as much as he knows, but no more. - Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Bk I.30, 1588.

"I would have everyone write what he knows, and as much as he knows, but no more."

Well, I guess we will have to fire half the college professors tomorrow.

Well, I guess we will have to fire half the college professors tomorrow.

Just half?

Don't sweat it, you didn't miss much. The eight years I spent in grad school probably took twenty years out of my life. Being surrounded by so many leftist morons had me on edge and with high blood pressure all the time. I entered as a Marxist and left as a radical right winger.

At the very least it teaches you how to do research and write books.

It's a mutual admiration society whose only purpose is to promote ass kissers to become future tenured professors. Go along to get along is the general philosophy. Last I heard it's getting worse.

I was subjected to 4 years of those Marxist jackasses, and that was enough. I would listen to one lecture, then meet the professor at the end of class waiving my drop/add slip. After about 8 of these withdrawls, I was nicknamed "The Drop/Add Kid" ;-)

Some things never change. ;0

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