Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6825

Besides, the method of arguing, of which Socrates here makes use, is it not equally admirable both in simplicity and vehemence? Truly it is much more easy to speak like Aristotle and to live like Caesar than to speak and live as Socrates did; there lies the extreme degree of perfection and difficulty; art cannot reach it. Now, our faculties are not so trained up; we do not try, we do not know them; we invest ourselves with those of others, and let our own lie idle; as some one may say of me, that I have here only made a nosegay of foreign flowers, having furnished nothing of my own but the thread to tie them.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4156

As the prerogative of the authority makes husbands look upon their own wives with a vicious disdain, and many fathers their children; so I, betwixt two equal merits, should always be swayed against my own; not so much that the jealousy of my advancement and bettering troubles my judgment, and hinders me from satisfying myself, as that of itself possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1663

The imagination of those who seek solitude upon the account of devotion, filling their hopes and courage with certainty of divine promises in the other life, is much more rationally founded.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2894

[“That a man should kill a man, not being angry, not in fear, only for the sake of the spectacle.”--Seneca, Ep., 90.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6721

how many who desire to die, or who die without alarm or regret? He who is now digging in my garden, has this morning buried his father or his son.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1477

64.]--Who could have found out a more subtle invention to secure his safety, than he did to assure his destruction?

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5186

But the saying that repentance immediately follows the sin seems not to have respect to sin in its high estate, which is lodged in us as in its own proper habitation. One may disown and retract the vices that surprise us, and to which we are hurried by passions; but those which by a long habit are rooted in a strong and vigorous will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is no other but a recanting of the will and an opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please. It makes this person disown his former virtue and continency:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5679

To stay its flight and delay it with preambles: all things --a glance, a bow, a word, a sign, stand for favour and recompense betwixt them. Were it not an excellent piece of thrift in him who could dine on the steam of the roast? ‘Tis a passion that mixes with very little solid essence, far more vanity and feverish raving; and we should serve and pay it accordingly.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3359

Socrates said that midwives, in taking upon them the trade of helping others to bring forth, left the trade of bringing forth themselves; and that by the title of a wise man or sage, which the gods had conferred upon him, he was disabled, in his virile and mental love, of the faculty of bringing forth, contenting himself to help and assist those that could; to open their nature, anoint the passes, and facilitate their birth; to judge of the infant, baptize, nourish, fortify, swath, and circumcise it, exercising and employing his understanding in the perils and fortunes of others.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2978

The means that I shall use, and that I think most proper to subdue this frenzy, is to crush and spurn under foot pride and human arrogance; to make them sensible of the inanity, vanity, and vileness of man; to wrest the wretched arms of their reason out of their hands; to make them bow down and bite the ground under the authority and reverence of the Divine Majesty.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6912

What could I have said to these people? ‘Tis certain that this office of humanity would have brought them into trouble.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3395

Xenophon reports a like perplexity in Socrates’s doctrine; one while that men are not to inquire into the form of God, and presently makes him maintain that the sun is God, and the soul God; that there is but one God, and then that there are many. Speusippus, the nephew of Plato, makes God a certain power governing all things, and that he has a soul.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 790

Children should carefully be instructed to abhor vices for their own contexture; and the natural deformity of those vices ought so to be represented to them, that they may not only avoid them in their actions, but especially so to abominate them in their hearts, that the very thought should be hateful to them, with what mask soever they may be disguised.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1669

Books are pleasant, but if, by being over-studious, we impair our health and spoil our goodhumour, the best pieces we have, let us give it over; I, for my part, am one of those who think, that no fruit derived from them can recompense so great a loss.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6850

Such as accuse ladies of contradicting their beauty by their manners, do not always hit right; for, in a face which is none of the best, there may dwell some air of probity and trust; as, on the contrary, I have read, betwixt two beautiful eyes, menaces of a dangerous and malignant nature.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2715

Many nations do yet, and did anciently, go to war without defensive arms, or with such, at least, as were of very little proof:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 510

Almanacs Being dead they were then by one day happier than he Books I read over again, still smile upon me with fresh novelty Death discharges us of all our obligations Difference betwixt memory and understanding Do thine own work, and know thyself Effect and performance are not at all in our power Fantastic gibberish of the prophetic canting Folly of gaping after future things Good to be certain and finite, and evil, infinite and uncertain He who lives everywhere, lives nowhere If they chop upon one truth, that carries a mighty report Impotencies that so unseasonably surprise the lover Let it be permitted to the timid to hope Light griefs can speak: deep sorrows are dumb Look, you who think the gods have no care of human things Nature of judgment to have it more deliberate and more slow Nature of wit is to have its operation prompt and sudden Nor have other tie upon one another, but by our word Old men who retain the memory of things past Pity is reputed a vice amongst the Stoics Rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory Reverse of truth has a hundred thousand forms Say of some compositions that they stink of oil and of the lamp Solon, that none can be said to be happy until he is dead Strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment Stumble upon a truth amongst an infinite number of lies Suffer those inconveniences which are not possibly to be avoided Superstitiously to seek out in the stars the ancient causes Their pictures are not here who were cast away Things I say are better than those I write We are masters of nothing but the will We cannot be bound beyond what we are able to perform Where the lion’s skin is too short

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2406

[“Death to that degree so frightens some men, that causing them to hate both life and light, they kill themselves, miserably forgetting that this same fear is the fountain of their cares.” --Lucretius, iii. 79.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3501

No one can be happy without virtue, nor virtue be without reason, and reason cannot inhabit anywhere but in a human shape; God is therefore clothed in a human figure.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7087

You put yourself voluntarily upon particular exploits and hazards, according as you judge of their lustre and importance; and, a volunteer, find even life itself excusably employed:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3239

here are brave ranting words; but a very slight accident put this man’s understanding in a worse condition than that of the meanest shepherd, notwithstanding this instructing god, this divine wisdom. Of the same stamp and impudence is the promise of Democritus’s book: “I am going to speak of all things;” and that foolish title that Aristotle prefixes to one of his, order only afforded him a few lucid intervals which he employed in composing his book, and at last made him kill himself,--Eusebius’s Chronicon.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4392

He said, amongst other things at his death, that he was obliged to the gods, and thanked them, in that they would not cut him off by surprise, having long before advertised him of the place and hour of his death, nor by a mean and unmanly death, more becoming lazy and delicate people; nor by a death that was languishing, long, and painful; and that they had thought him worthy to die after that noble manner, in the progress of his victories, in the flower of his glory.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3103

The caméléon takes her colour from the place upon which she is laid; but the polypus gives himself what colour he pleases, according to occasion, either to conceal himself from what he fears, or from what he has a design to seize: in the caméléon ‘tis a passive, but in the polypus ‘tis an active, change. We have some changes of colour, as in fear, anger, shame, and other passions, that alter our complexions; but it is by the effect of suffering, as with the caméléon.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1862

Many at Rome thought, and would usually say, that the greatest of Scipio’s acts were in part due to Laelius, whose constant practice it was still to advance and support Scipio’s grandeur and renown, without any care of his own.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4256

And besides, in a work of a man’s own, the liberty and authority of altering the order, of changing a word, incessantly varying the matter, makes it harder to stick in the memory of the author. The more I mistrust it the worse it is; it serves me best by chance; I must solicit it negligently; for if I press it, ‘tis confused, and after it once begins to stagger, the more I sound it, the more it is perplexed; it serves me at its own hour, not at mine.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5792

I say that males and females are cast in the same mould, and that, education and usage excepted, the difference is not great. Plato indifferently invites both the one and the other to the society of all studies, exercises, and vocations, both military and civil, in his Commonwealth; and the philosopher Antisthenes rejected all distinction betwixt their virtue and ours. It is much more easy to accuse one sex than to excuse the other; ‘tis according to the saying,

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1470

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:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 214

For the nature of things having (I know not how) permitted that truth, fair and acceptable--as it may be of itself, is only embraced where there are arts of persuasion, to insinuate it into our minds, I see myself so wanting, both in authority to support my simple testimony, and in the eloquence requisite for lending it value and weight, that I was on the eve of relinquishing the task, having nothing of his which would enable me to exhibit to the world a proof of his genius and knowledge.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1384

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.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2784

As to Cicero, I am of the common opinion that, learning excepted, he had no great natural excellence. He was a good citizen, of an affable nature, as all fat, heavy men, such as he was, usually are; but given to ease, and had, in truth, a mighty share of vanity and ambition.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 239

I will not spare either my life or anything else for your service, and will leave it to your judgment whether the assistance I might be able to render by my presence at the forthcoming election, would be worth the risk I should run by going into the town, seeing the bad state it is in, --[This refers to the plague then raging, and which carried off 14,000 persons at Bordeaux.]--particularly for people coming away from so fine an air as this is where I am.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 720

I had a fancy to make some use of this knack, and therefore privately told the Count, that he might possibly run the same fortune other bridegrooms had sometimes done, especially some one being in the house, who, no doubt, would be glad to do him such a courtesy: but let him boldly go to bed.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4663

A word more to conclude this argument. Aristotle says, that anger sometimes serves for arms to virtue and valour. That is probable; nevertheless, they who contradict him pleasantly answer, that ‘tis a weapon of novel use, for we move all other arms, this moves us; our hand guides it not, ‘tis it that guides our hand; it holds us, we hold not it.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5138

Though he should, with folded arms, only call God to his assistance, has he not reason to hope that the divine goodness will not refuse the favour of an extraordinary arm to just and pure hands?

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4457

There--are many in our times who talk at this rate, wishing that this hot emotion that is now amongst us might discharge itself in some neighbouring war, for fear lest all the peccant humours that now reign in this politic body of ours may diffuse themselves farther, keep the fever still in the height, and at last cause our total ruin; and, in truth, a foreign is much more supportable than a civil war, but I do not believe that God will favour so unjust a design as to offend and quarrel with others for our own advantage:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6211

I, moreover, fear, in these fantasies of mine, the treachery of my memory, lest, by inadvertence, it should make me write the same thing twice. I hate to examine myself, and never review, but very unwillingly, what has once escaped my pen. I here set down nothing new. These are common thoughts, and having, peradventure, conceived them an hundred times, I am afraid I have set them down somewhere else already.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7062

The worst that I see in other diseases is, that they are not so grievous in their effect as they are in their issue: a man is a whole year in recovering, and all the while full of weakness and fear.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 678

“Give place to others, as others have given place to you. Equality is the soul of equity. Who can complain of being comprehended in the same destiny, wherein all are involved? Besides, live as long as you can, you shall by that nothing shorten the space you are to be dead; ‘tis all to no purpose; you shall be every whit as long in the condition you so much fear, as if you had died at nurse:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3294

At last he concluded that he was not distinguished from others, nor wise, but only because he did not think himself so; and that his God considered the opinion of knowledge and wisdom as a singular absurdity in man; and that his best doctrine was the doctrine of ignorance, and simplicity his best wisdom.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1079

[“Neither is their any necessity upon him, that he should defend all things that are prescribed and enjoined him.” --Cicero, Acad., ii. 3.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3877

This so desperate and unphilosophical advice expresses only this,--that human knowledge cannot support itself but by reason unreasonable, foolish, and mad; but that it is yet better that man, to set a greater value upon himself, make use of any other remedy, how fantastic soever, than to confess his necessary ignorance--a truth so disadvantageous to him.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2422

“Multa dies, variusque labor mutabilis nevi Rettulit in melius; multos alterna revisens Lusit, et in solido rursus fortuna locavit.”

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5982

I am of opinion that in, Plato and Xenophon Socrates disputes more in favour of the disputants than in favour of the dispute, and more to instruct Euthydemus and Protagoras in the, knowledge of their impertinence, than in the impertinence of their art. He takes hold of the first subject like one who has a more profitable end than to explain it--namely, to clear the understandings that he takes upon him to instruct and exercise.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4330

The most remarkable men, as I have judged by outward appearance (for to judge of them according to my own method, I must penetrate a great deal deeper), for soldiers and military conduct, were the Duc de Guise, who died at Orleans, and the late Marshal Strozzi; and for men of great ability and no common virtue, Olivier and De l’Hospital, Chancellors of France.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3801

the murder of infants, the murder of fathers, the community of wives, traffic of robberies, license in all sorts of voluptuousness; in short, there is nothing so extreme that is not allowed by the custom of some nation or other.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 700

Simon Thomas was a great physician of his time: I remember, that happening one day at Toulouse to meet him at a rich old fellow’s house, who was troubled with weak lungs, and discoursing with the patient about the method of his cure, he told him, that one thing which would be very conducive to it, was to give me such occasion to be pleased with his company, that I might come often to see him, by which means, and by fixing his eyes upon the freshness of my complexion, and his imagination upon the sprightliness and vigour that glowed in my youth, and possessing all his senses with the flourishing age wherein I then was, his habit of body might, peradventure, be amended; but he forgot to say that mine, at the same time, might be made worse.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2706

Can we believe that Epicurus who, as he says himself, dying of the intolerable pain of the stone, had all his consolation in the beauty of the doctrine he left behind him, could have received the same satisfaction from many children, though never so well-conditioned and brought up, had he had them, as he did from the production of so many rich writings?

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5105

I have often seen these counterfeit and artificial liberties practised, but, for the most part, without success; they relish of AEsop’s ass who, in emulation of the dog, obligingly clapped his two fore-feet upon his master’s shoulders; but as many caresses as the dog had for such an expression of kindness, twice so many blows with a cudgel had the poor ass for his compliment:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4966

Hippocrates brought it into repute; whatever he established, Chrysippus overthrew; after that, Erasistratus, Aristotle’s grandson, overthrew what Chrysippus had written; after these, the Empirics started up, who took a quite contrary way to the ancients in the management of this art; when the credit of these began a little to decay, Herophilus set another sort of practice on foot, which Asclepiades in turn stood up against, and overthrew; then, in their turn, the opinions first of Themiso, and then of Musa, and after that those of Vectius Valens, a physician famous through the intelligence he had with Messalina, came in vogue; the empire of physic in Nero’s time was established in Thessalus, who abolished and condemned all that had been held till his time; this man’s doctrine was refuted by Crinas of Marseilles, who first brought all medicinal operations under the Ephemerides and motions of the stars, and reduced eating, sleeping, and drinking to hours that were most pleasing to Mercury and the moon; his authority was soon after supplanted by Charinus, a physician of the same city of Marseilles, a man who not only controverted all the ancient methods of physic, but moreover the usage of hot baths, that had been generally and for so many ages in common use; he made men bathe in cold water, even in winter, and plunged his sick patients in the natural waters of streams.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3858

“Can ears the eyes, the touch the ears, correct? Or is that touch by tasting to be check’d? Or th’ other senses, shall the nose or eyes Confute in their peculiar faculties?”

Essays of Michel de Montaigne

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