Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6639

In this way, we know the foundations and means of things that never were; and the world scuffles about a thousand questions, of which both the Pro and the Con are false.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4641

Piso, otherwise a man of very eminent virtue, being moved against a soldier of his, for that returning alone from forage he could give him no account where he had left a companion of his, took it for granted that he had killed him, and presently condemned him to death.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3534

There is not more retrogradation, trepidation, accession, recession, and astonishment, in the stars and celestial bodies, than they have found out in this poor little human body. In earnest, they have good reason, upon that very account, to call it the little world, so many tools and parts have they employed to erect and build it. To assist the motions they see in man, and the various functions that we find in ourselves, in how many parts have they divided the soul, in how many places lodged it?

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3355

Cicero reprehends some of his friends for giving more of their time to the study of astrology, logic, and geometry, than they were really worth; saying that they were by these diverted from the duties of life, and more profitable and proper studies. The Cyrenaick philosophers, in like manner, despised physics and logic. Zeno, in the very beginning of the books of the commonwealth, declared all the liberal arts of no use.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5812

At the little jerks of oars, stealing the vessel from under us, I find, I know not how, both my head and my stomach disordered; neither-can I endure to sit upon a tottering chair. When the sail or the current carries us equally, or that we are towed, the equal agitation does not disturb me at all; ‘tis an interrupted motion that offends me, and most of all when most slow: I cannot otherwise express it.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5918

Let us return to our temporal greatness, from which we are digressed. I disrelish all dominion, whether active or passive. Otanes, one of the seven who had right to pretend to the kingdom of Persia, did as I should willingly have done, which was, that he gave up to his competitors his right of being promoted to it, either by election or by lot, provided that he and his might live in the empire out of all authority and subjection, those of the ancient laws excepted, and might enjoy all liberty that was not prejudicial to these, being as impatient of commanding as of being commanded.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 528

And, in truth, ‘tis reason that a man should make a great difference betwixt faults that merely proceed from infirmity, and those that are visibly the effects of treachery and malice: for, in the last, we act against the rules of reason that nature has imprinted in us; whereas, in the former, it seems as if we might produce the same nature, who left us in such a state of imperfection and weakness of courage, for our justification.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6637

They commonly begin thus: “How is such a thing done?” Whereas they should say, “Is such a thing done?” Our reason is able to create a hundred other worlds, and to find out the beginnings and contexture; it needs neither matter nor foundation: let it but run on, it builds as well in the air as on the earth, and with inanity as well as with matter:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6093

It is not a book to read, ‘tis a book to study and learn “It was what I was about to say; it was just my idea,” Judge by justice, and choose men by reason Knock you down with the authority of their experience Learning improves fortunes enough, but not minds Liberality at the expense of others Malice must be employed to correct this arrogant ignorance Man must have a care not to do his master so great service Mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations Most men are rich in borrowed sufficiency My humour is unfit either to speak or write for beginners My reason is not obliged to bow and bend; my knees are Never oppose them either by word or sign, how false or absurd New World: sold it opinions and our arts at a very dear rate Obstinancy and heat in argument are the surest proofs of folly One must first know what is his own and what is not Our knowledge, which is a wretched foundation Passion has already confounded his judgment Pinch the secret strings of our imperfections Practical Jokes: Tis unhandsome to fight in play Presumptive knowledge by silence Silent mien procured the credit of prudence and capacity Spectators can claim no interest in the honour and pleasure Study of books is a languishing and feeble motion The cause of truth ought to be the common cause The event often justifies a very foolish conduct The ignorant return from the combat full of joy and triumph The very name Liberality sounds of Liberty.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4581

If they are persons of meaner condition, the body of the defunct is carried to the place of sepulture, and there placed sitting, the widow kneeling before him, embracing the dead body; and they continue in this posture whilst the people build a wall about them, which so soon as it is raised to the height of the woman’s shoulders, one of her relations comes behind her, and taking hold of her head, twists her neck; so soon as she is dead, the wall is presently raised up, and closed, and there they remain entombed.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5726

I universally owe my entire picture to the public. The wisdom of my instruction consists in liberty, in truth, in essence: disdaining to introduce those little, feigned, common, and provincial rules into the catalogue of its real duties; all natural, general, and constant, of which civility and ceremony are daughters indeed, but illegitimate.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 170

But I am going away” --That he said because his strength was failing him; and fearing that he had frightened his wife, he resumed, observing: “I am going to sleep. Good night, my wife; go thy way.” This was the last farewell he took of her.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5428

It is, then, no wonder if a contrary state stupefy and clog my spirit, and produce a contrary effect:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3606

Nam si tantopere est anirai mutata potestas, Omnia ut actarum exciderit retinentia rerum, Non, ut opinor, ea ab letho jam longior errat.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3771

Quid enim ratione timemus, Aut cupimus? Quid tain dextro pede concipis, ut te Conatus non poniteat, votique peracti?

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4583

And he was neither reputed holy nor happy amongst them who did not thus destroy himself, dismissing his soul purged and purified by the fire, after having consumed all that was earthly and mortal. This constant premeditation of the whole life is that which makes the wonder.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2597

But, forasmuch as by reason of his tender years, he has not been capable of taking notice of those offices of extremest value he has in so great number received from you, I will, if these papers shall one day happen to fall into his hands, when I shall neither have mouth nor speech left to deliver it to him, that he shall receive from me a true account of those things, which shall be more effectually manifested to him by their own effects, by which he will understand that there is not a gentleman in France who stands more indebted to a mother’s care; and that he cannot, in the future, give a better nor more certain testimony of his own worth and virtue than by acknowledging you for that excellent mother you are.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 381

give me back my legions!” for these exceed all folly, forasmuch as impiety is joined therewith, invading God Himself, or at least Fortune, as if she had ears that were subject to our batteries; like the Thracians, who when it thunders or lightens, fall to shooting against heaven with Titanian vengeance, as if by flights of arrows they intended to bring God to reason. Though the ancient poet in Plutarch tells us--

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3154

One day, as he was at a general muster of his army, this dog, seeing his master’s murderers, with great barking and extreme signs of anger flew upon them, and by this first accusation awakened the revenge of this murder, which was soon after perfected by form of justice. As much was done by the dog of the wise Hesiod, who convicted the sons of Ganictor of Naupactus of the murder committed on the person of his master.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3149

“Swarm to my bed like bees into their hives. Declare for love, or war, she said; and frown’d: No love I’ll grant: to arms bid trumpets sound.”

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 550

Crassus, the same whom the Romans reputed five times happy, at the time when he was consul in Asia, having sent to a Greek engineer to cause the greater of two masts of ships that he had taken notice of at Athens to be brought to him, to be employed about some engine of battery he had a design to make; the other, presuming upon his own science and sufficiency in those affairs, thought fit to do otherwise than directed, and to bring the less, which, according to the rules of art, was really more proper for the use to which it was designed; but Crassus, though he gave ear to his reasons with great patience, would not, however, take them, how sound or convincing soever, for current pay, but caused him to be well whipped for his pains, valuing the interest of discipline much more than that of the work in hand.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4326

“Faciasne, quod olim Mutatus Polemon? ponas insignia morbi Fasciolas, cubital, focalia; potus ut ille Dicitur ex collo furtim carpsisse coronas, Postquam est impransi correptus voce magistri?”

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1061

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, according to the opinion of Plato, who says, that constancy, faith, and sincerity, are the true philosophy, and the other sciences, that are directed to other ends; mere adulterate paint.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2982

We must do more than this, and make them know that, to convince the weakness of their reason, there is no necessity of culling out uncommon examples: and that it is so defective and so blind that there is no faculty clear enough for it; that to it the easy and the hard are all one; that all subjects equally, and nature in general, disclaim its authority and reject its mediation.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 10

It was considered imperative to correct Cotton’s translation by a careful collation with the ‘variorum’ edition of the original, Paris, 1854, 4 vols. 8vo or 12mo, and parallel passages from Florin’s earlier undertaking have occasionally been inserted at the foot of the page. A Life of the Author and all his recovered Letters, sixteen in number, have also been given; but, as regards the correspondence, it can scarcely be doubted that it is in a purely fragmentary state. To do more than furnish a sketch of the leading incidents in Montaigne’s life seemed, in the presence of Bayle St. John’s charming and able biography, an attempt as difficult as it was useless.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1647

We are to use these accidental and extraneous commodities, so far as they are pleasant to us, but by no means to lay our principal foundation there; ‘tis no true one; neither nature nor reason allows it so to be. Why therefore should we, contrary to their laws, enslave our own contentment to the power of another?

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 294

I conceived these examples not ill suited to the question in hand, and the rather because therein we observe these great souls assaulted and tried by these two several ways, to resist the one without relenting, and to be shook and subjected by the other.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5381

The obstinacy of my stone to all remedies especially those in my bladder, has sometimes thrown me into so long suppressions of urine for three or four days together, and so near death, that it had been folly to have hoped to evade it, and it was much rather to have been desired, considering the miseries I endure in those cruel fits. Oh, that good emperor, who caused criminals to be tied that they might die for want of urination, was a great master in the hangman’s’ science!

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4868

but though Caesar’s ambition had been more moderate, it would still be so unhappy, having the ruin of his country and universal mischief to the world for its abominable object, that, all things raked together and put into the balance, I must needs incline to Alexander’s side.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7136

I fear a mist, and fly from smoke as from the plague: the first repairs I fell upon in my own house were the chimneys and houses of office, the common and insupportable defects of all old buildings; and amongst the difficulties of war I reckon the choking dust they made us ride in a whole day together. I have a free and easy respiration, and my colds for the most part go off without offence to the lungs and without a cough.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2524

[“For the soul, doubtful as to its return, could not compose itself” --Tasso, Gierus. Lib., xii. 74.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5859

[“Why before the Theban war and the destruction of Troy, have not other poets sung other events?”--Lucretius, v. 327. Montaigne here diverts himself m giving Lucretius’ words a construction directly contrary to what they bear in the poem. Lucretius puts the question, Why if the earth had existed from all eternity, there had not been poets, before the Theban war, to sing men’s exploits. --Coste.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7185

I do not suffer it to dally with my senses only; I associate my soul to it too: not there to engage itself, but therein to take delight; not there to lose itself, but to be present there; and I employ it, on its part, to view itself in this prosperous state, to weigh and appreciate its happiness and to amplify it.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1465

Their wars are throughout noble and generous, and carry as much excuse and fair pretence, as that human malady is capable of; having with them no other foundation than the sole jealousy of valour. Their disputes are not for the conquest of new lands, for these they already possess are so fruitful by nature, as to supply them without labour or concern, with all things necessary, in such abundance that they have no need to enlarge their borders.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1420

It should seem, that in this great body, there are two sorts of motions, the one natural and the other febrific, as there are in ours.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3265

_Levationes ægritudinum in avocatione a cogitandâ molestiâ, et revocation ad contemplandas voluptates, ponit_; “He directs us to alleviate our grief and pains by rejecting unpleasant thoughts, and recalling agreeable ideas;” if it be not that where her power fails she would supply it with policy, and make use of sleight of hand where force of limbs will not serve her turn?

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 868

Jacques Amiot, grand almoner of France, one day related to me this story, much to the honour of a prince of ours (and ours he was upon several very good accounts, though originally of foreign extraction),--[The Duc de Guise, surnamed Le Balafre.]--that in the time of our first commotions, at the siege of Rouen,--[In 1562]--this prince, having been advertised by the queen-mother of a conspiracy against his life, and in her letters particular notice being given him of the person who was to execute the business (who was a gentleman of Anjou or of Maine, and who to this effect ordinarily frequented this prince’s house), discovered not a syllable of this intelligence to any one whatever; but going the next day to the St.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3930

Shall we say that musk, which delights the smell, and is offensive to the taste, is agreeable or no? There are herbs and unguents proper for one part o£ the body, that are hurtful to another; honey is pleasant to the taste, but offensive to the sight.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5006

They avoided all alliances and traffic with the outer world, that they might not corrupt the purity of their own government; till, as they say, one of them, in the memory of man, having a mind spurred on with a noble ambition, took it into his head, to bring his name into credit and reputation, to make one of his sons something more than ordinary, and having put him to learn to write in a neighbouring town, made him at last a brave village notary.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3815

As to the liberty of philosophical opinions concerning vice and virtue, ‘tis not necessary to be insisted upon; therein are found many opinions that are better concealed than published to weak minds. Arcesilaus said, “That in venery it was no matter where, or with whom, it was committed:” _Et obsccenas voluptates, si natura requirit, non genere, aut loco, aut ordine, sed forma, otate, jigurâ, metiendas Epicurus putat.... ne amores quidem sanctos a sapiente alienos esse arbitrantur....

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1588

yet, in judging of these accidents, we are to consider how much our souls are oftentimes agitated with divers passions.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3057

And withal in this these have something more generous in that one lion never submitted to another lion, nor one horse to another, for want of courage. As we go to the chase of beasts, so do tigers and lions to the chase of men, and do the same execution upon one another; dogs upon hares, pikes upon tench, swallows upon grass-hoppers, and sparrow-hawks upon blackbirds and larks:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6849

And yet I fancy that those features and moulds of face, and those lineaments, by which men guess at our internal complexions and our fortunes to come, is a thing that does not very directly and simply lie under the chapter of beauty and deformity, no more than every good odour and serenity of air promises health, nor all fog and stink infection in a time of pestilence.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4544

All that exceeds a simple death appears to me absolute cruelty. Our justice cannot expect that he, whom the fear of dying by being beheaded or hanged will not restrain, should be any more awed by the imagination of a languishing fire, pincers, or the wheel. And I know not, in the meantime, whether we do not throw them into despair; for in what condition can be the soul of a man, expecting four-and-twenty hours together to be broken upon a wheel, or after the old way, nailed to a cross?

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5464

it has I know not what kind of air, more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful, naked, alive, and panting, as she is here in Virgil:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 769

[“For, whatever from its own confines passes changed, this is at once the death of that which before it was.”--Lucretius, ii. 752.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6235

All the particular being summed up together, I do not find one man of my country, who pays so dear for the defence of our laws both in loss and damages (as the lawyers say) as myself; and some there are who vapour and brag of their zeal and constancy, that if things were justly weighed, do much less than I.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5250

But; methinks, our souls in old age are subject to more troublesome maladies and imperfections than in youth; I said the same when young and when I was reproached with the want of a beard; and I say so now that my grey hairs give me some authority. We call the difficulty of our humours and the disrelish of present things wisdom; but, in truth, we do not so much forsake vices as we change them, and in my opinion, for worse.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2098

[“The little boys in their sleep often think they are near the public urinal, and raise their coats to make use of it.” --Lucretius, iv.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2117

Of a hundred members and faces that everything has, I take one, onewhile to look it over only, another while to ripple up the skin, and sometimes to pinch it to the bones: I give a stab, not so wide but as deep as I can, and am for the most part tempted to take it in hand by some new light I discover in it.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne

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