Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne (Charles Cotton translation)
7,241 passages indexed from Essays of Michel de Montaigne (Michel de Montaigne (Charles Cotton translation)) — Page 102 of 145
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Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 917
Mine, amongst the rest, was, that they should by all means avoid giving any sign of suspicion, but that the officers who were most in danger should boldly go, and with cheerful and erect countenances ride boldly and confidently through the ranks, and that instead of sparing fire (which the counsels of the major part tended to) they should entreat the captains to command the soldiers to give round and full volleys in honour of the spectators, and not to spare their powder.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3150
Of fresh memory, the Portuguese having besieged the city of Tamly, in the territory of Xiatine, the inhabitants of the place brought a great many hives, of which are great plenty in that place, upon the wall; and with fire drove the bees so furiously upon the enemy that they gave over the enterprise, not being able to stand their attacks and endure their stings; and so the citizens, by this new sort of relief, gained liberty and the victory with so wonderful a fortune, that at the return of their defenders from the battle they found they had not lost so much as one.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4970
If we were even assured that, when they make a mistake, that mistake of theirs would do us no harm, though it did us no good, it were a reasonable bargain to venture the making ourselves better without any danger of being made worse.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4593
At last I slipped my dogs after her, but to no more purpose than I had shot: by which I understood that she had been secured by her destiny; and, that neither darts nor swords can wound without the permission of fate, which we can neither hasten nor defer.” This story may serve, by the way, to let us see how flexible our reason is to all sorts of images.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3038
We converse with them in another sort of language, and use other appellations, than we do with birds, hogs, oxen, horses, and alter the idiom according to the kind.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4230
and besides, a man rarely arrives at these advancements but in first hazarding what he has of his own; and I am of opinion that if a man have sufficient to maintain him in the condition wherein he was born and brought up, ‘tis a great folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of augmenting it. He to whom fortune has denied whereon to set his foot, and to settle a quiet and composed way of living, is to be excused if he venture what he has, because, happen what will, necessity puts him upon shifting for himself:
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4221
For want of constancy enough to support the shock of adverse accidents to which we are subject, and of patience seriously to apply myself to the management of my affairs, I nourish as much as I can this in myself, wholly leaving all to fortune “to take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear that worst with temper and patience”; that is the only thing I aim at, and to which I apply my whole meditation.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1209
[“That has most weight and wisdom which pierces the ear.” (“That utterance indeed will have a taste which shall strike the ear.”) --Epitaph on Lucan, in Fabricius, Biblioth. Lat., ii. 10.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6098
[It was not Diomedes, but Didymus the grammarian, who, as Seneca (Ep., 88) tells us, wrote four not six thousand books on questions of vain literature, which was the principal study of the ancient grammarian.--Coste. But the number is probably exaggerated, and for books we should doubtless read pamphlets or essays.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1056
Bees cull their several sweets from this flower and that blossom, here and there where they find them, but themselves afterwards make the honey, which is all and purely their own, and no more thyme and marjoram: so the several fragments he borrows from others, he will transform and shuffle together to compile a work that shall be absolutely his own; that is to say, his judgment: his instruction, labour and study, tend to nothing else but to form that.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2471
‘Tis true, that being upon the subject of curiosity and of that eager passion for news, which makes us with so much indiscretion and impatience leave all to entertain a newcomer, and without any manner of respect or outcry, tear open on a sudden, in what company soever, the letters that are delivered to us, he had reason to applaud the gravity of Rusticus upon this occasion; and might moreover have added to it the commendation of his civility and courtesy, that would not interrupt the current of his declamation.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7078
I have many times amused myself, being well and in safety, and quite free from these dangerous attacks in communicating them to the physicians as then beginning to discover themselves in me; I underwent the decree of their dreadful conclusions, being all the while quite at my ease, and so much the more obliged to the favour of God and better satisfied of the vanity of this art.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1850
Of all the follies of the world, that which is most universally received is the solicitude of reputation and glory; which we are fond of to that degree as to abandon riches, peace, life, and health, which are effectual and substantial goods, to pursue this vain phantom and empty word, that has neither body nor hold to be taken of it:
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1346
In short, these are effects not to be imagined nor comprehended by such as have not experience of them, and which make me infinitely honour and admire the answer of that young soldier to Cyrus, by whom being asked how much he would take for a horse, with which he had won the prize of a race, and whether he would exchange him for a kingdom?
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2685
Wherefore, lest any flatterer in your old age or in your sickness, or any passion of your own, should unseasonably prevail with you to make an unjust will, I shall take care to prevent that inconvenience; but, having respect both to the universal interests of the city and that of your particular family, I shall establish laws, and make it by good reasons appear, that private convenience ought to give place to the common benefit. Go then cheerfully where human necessity calls you.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5037
“MADAME,--The last time you honoured me with a visit, you found me at work upon this chapter, and as these trifles may one day fall into your hands, I would also that they testify in how great honour the author will take any favour you shall please to show them.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6798
“Incertam frustra, mortales, funeris horam, Quaeritis et qua sit mors aditura via.... Poena minor certam subito perferre ruinam; Quod timeas, gravius sustinuisse diu.”
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3197
And a man now living says that he has seen in an eastern nation this care of enlarging them in so great repute, and the ear loaded with so ponderous jewels, that he did with great ease put his arm, sleeve and all, through the hole of an ear. There are elsewhere nations that take great care to black their teeth, and hate to see them white, whilst others paint them red.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2665
The late Mareschal de Montluc having lost his son, who died in the island of Madeira, in truth a very worthy gentleman and of great expectation, did to me, amongst his other regrets, very much insist upon what a sorrow and heart-breaking it was that he had never made himself familiar with him; and by that humour of paternal gravity and grimace to have lost the opportunity of having an insight into and of well knowing, his son, as also of letting him know the extreme affection he had for him, and the worthy opinion he had of his virtue.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 368
A gentleman of my country, marvellously tormented with the gout, being importuned by his physicians totally to abstain from all manner of salt meats, was wont pleasantly to reply, that in the extremity of his fits he must needs have something to quarrel with, and that railing at and cursing, one while the Bologna sausages, and another the dried tongues and the hams, was some mitigation to his pain. But, in good earnest, as the arm when it is advanced to strike, if it miss the blow, and goes by the wind, it pains us; and as also, that, to make a pleasant prospect, the sight should not be lost and dilated in vague air, but have some bound and object to limit and circumscribe it at a reasonable distance.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3021
Why does the spider make her web tighter in one place, and slacker in another; why now make one sort of knot, and then another, if she has not deliberation, thought, and conclusion? We sufficiently discover in most of their works how much animals excel us, and how unable our art is to imitate them. We see, nevertheless, in our rougher performances, that we employ all our faculties, and apply the utmost power of our souls; why do we not conclude the same of them?
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2844
And who, that has his brain never so little tinctured with the true philosophy, can be content to imagine Socrates only free from fear and passion in the accident of his prison, fetters, and condemnation? and that will not discover in him not only firmness and constancy (which was his ordinary condition), but, moreover, I know not what new satisfaction, and a frolic cheerfulness in his last words and actions?
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5535
“Omne adeo genus in terris, hominumque, ferarumque, Et genus aequoreum, pecudes, pictaeque volucres, In furias ignemque ruunt.”
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5374
If I am not able to contend with it, I escape from it; and in avoiding it, slip out of the way, and make, my doubles; shifting place, business, and company, I secure myself in the crowd of other thoughts and fancies, where it loses my trace, and I escape.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5600
[“Put on a lock; shut them up under a guard; but who shall guard the guard? she knows what she is about, and begins with them.” --Juvenal, vi. 346.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6992
I have picked up charity boys to serve me: who soon after have quitted both my kitchen and livery, only that they might return to their former course of life; and I found one afterwards, picking mussels out of the sewer for his dinner, whom I could neither by entreaties nor threats reclaim from the sweetness he found in indigence. Beggars have their magnificences and delights, as well as the rich, and, ‘tis said, their dignities and polities.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2448
Jubellius Taurea, another citizen of the same country, the Consul Fulvius returning from the shameful butchery he had made of two hundred and twenty-five senators, called him back fiercely by name, and having made him stop: “Give the word,” said he, “that somebody may dispatch me after the massacre of so many others, that thou mayest boast to have killed a much more valiant man than thyself.” Fulvius, disdaining him as a man out of his wits, and also having received letters from Rome censuring the inhumanity of his execution which tied his hands, Jubellius proceeded: “Since my country has been taken, my friends dead, and having with my own hands slain my wife and children to rescue them from the desolation of this ruin, I am denied to die the death of my fellow-citizens, let me borrow from virtue vengeance on this hated life,” and therewithal drawing a short sword he carried concealed about him, he ran it through his own bosom, falling down backward, and expiring at the consul’s feet.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1274
Stephen’s shrine with a nosegay, and rubbing her eyes with it, to have recovered her sight, lost many years before; with several other miracles of which he professes himself to have been an eyewitness: of what shall we excuse him and the two holy bishops, Aurelius and Maximinus, both of whom he attests to the truth of these things? Shall it be of ignorance, simplicity, and facility; or of malice and imposture?
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4691
The other example he introduces of “things incredible and wholly fabulous,” delivered by Plutarch, is, that “Agesilaus was fined by the Ephori for having wholly engrossed the hearts and affections of his citizens to himself alone.” And herein I do not see what sign of falsity is to be found: clearly Plutarch speaks of things that must needs be better known to him than to us; and it was no new thing in Greece to see men punished and exiled for this very thing, for being too acceptable to the people; witness the Ostracism and Petalism.--[Ostracism at Athens was banishment for ten years; petalism at Syracuse was banishment for five years.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1935
The way by which our laws attempt to regulate idle and vain expenses in meat and clothes, seems to be quite contrary to the end designed. The true way would be to beget in men a contempt of silks and gold, as vain, frivolous, and useless; whereas we augment to them the honours, and enhance the value of such things, which, sure, is a very improper way to create a disgust.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5188
‘Tis an exact life that maintains itself in due order in private. Every one may juggle his part, and represent an honest man upon the stage: but within, and in his own bosom, where all may do as they list, where all is concealed, to be regular, there’s the point. The next degree is to be so in his house, and in his ordinary actions, for which we are accountable to none, and where there is no study nor artifice.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1673
[“Silently meditating in the healthy groves, whatever is worthy of a wise and good man.”--Horace, Ep., i. 4, 4.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4258
This tyrannical and compulsive appointment baffles them; they shrink up either through fear or spite, and fall into a trance.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3482
“Men,” says St. Paul, “professing themselves to be wise, they become fools; and change the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man.” Do but take notice of the juggling in the ancient deifications. After the great and stately pomp of the funeral, so soon as the fire began to mount to the top of the pyramid, and to catch hold of the couch where the body lay, they at the same time turned out an eagle, which flying upward, signified that the soul went into Paradise.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1034
But, in truth, all I understand as to that particular is only this, that the greatest and most important difficulty of human science is the education of children.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 858
“Quum de religione agitur, Ti. Coruncanium, P. Scipionem, P. Scaevolam, pontifices maximos, non Zenonem, aut Cleanthem, aut Chrysippum, sequor.”
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3895
and Pygmalion’s judgment so troubled by the impression of the sight of his ivory statue that he loves and adores it as if it were a living woman!
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1718
The Italians are great printers of letters; I do believe I have at least an hundred several volumes of them; of all which those of Annibale Caro seem to me to be the best. If all the paper I have scribbled to the ladies at the time when my hand was really prompted by my passion, were now in being, there might, peradventure, be found a page worthy to be communicated to our young inamoratos, that are besotted with that fury.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3229
And, on the contrary, the first temptation that by the devil was offered to human nature, its first poison insinuated itself into us by the promise made us of knowledge and wisdom; _Eritis sicut Dii, scientes bonum et malum._ “Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And the sirens, in Homer, to allure Ulysses, and draw him within the danger of their snares, offered to give him knowledge.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5348
This other story that follows is also of the same category. Atalanta, a virgin of excelling beauty and of wonderful disposition of body, to disengage herself from the crowd of a thousand suitors who sought her in marriage, made this proposition, that she would accept of him for her husband who should equal her in running, upon condition that they who failed should lose their lives.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4233
[“What condition can compare with that where one has gained the palm without the dust of the course.”--Horace, Ep., i. I, 51.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2782
A man may indeed judge of their parts, but not of their manners nor of themselves, by the writings they exhibit upon the theatre of the world. I have a thousand times lamented the loss of the treatise Brutus wrote upon Virtue, for it is well to learn the theory from those who best know the practice.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5816
In my time, a gentleman on one of our frontiers, unwieldy of body, and finding no horse able to carry his weight, having a quarrel, rode through the country in a chariot of this fashion, and found great convenience in it. But let us leave these chariots of war.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7037
[“Like one who, desiring to stay an impending ruin, places various props against it, till, in a short time, the house, the props, and all, giving way, fall together.”--Pseudo-Gallus, i. 171.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2044
There are several examples in the Roman history (and Suetonius more particularly observes it of Caesar) of captains who, on pressing occasions, commanded their cavalry to alight, both by that means to take from them all hopes of flight, as also for the advantage they hoped in this sort of fight.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1508
[“Either tranquil life, or happy death. It is well to die when life is wearisome. It is better to die than to live miserable.” --Stobaeus, Serm. xx.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4283
I was present one day at Barleduc, when King Francis II., for a memorial of Rene, king of Sicily, was presented with a portrait he had drawn of himself: why is it not in like manner lawful for every one to draw himself with a pen, as he did with a crayon? I will not, therefore, omit this blemish though very unfit to be published, which is irresolution; a very great effect and very incommodious in the negotiations of the affairs of the world; in doubtful enterprises, I know not which to choose:
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3207
And, although this receipt may peradventure proceed from a nice and cold humour, it is notwithstanding a very great sign of our deficiencies that use and acquaintance should make us disgust one another. It is not modesty, so much as cunning and prudence, that makes our ladies so circumspect to refuse us admittance into their cabinets before they are painted and tricked up for the public view:--
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2060
The Gauls, our kinsmen in Asia, abominated these treacherous missile arms, it being their use to fight, with greater bravery, hand to hand:
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 784
II. The Egyptians were said to be stunned by the noise of the Cataracts.]-- Smiths, millers, pewterers, forgemen, and armourers could never be able to live in the perpetual noise of their own trades, did it strike their ears with the same violence that it does ours.