Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6842

this refers to an unnatural ugliness and deformity of limbs; but we call ugliness also an unseemliness at first sight, which is principally lodged in the face, and disgusts us on very slight grounds: by the complexion, a spot, a rugged countenance, for some reasons often wholly inexplicable, in members nevertheless of good symmetry and perfect.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 348

The proceeding of Captain Bayard is of a better composition, who finding himself wounded to death with an harquebuss shot, and being importuned to retire out of the fight, made answer that he would not begin at the last gasp to turn his back to the enemy, and accordingly still fought on, till feeling himself too faint and no longer able to sit on his horse, he commanded his steward to set him down at the foot of a tree, but so that he might die with his face towards the enemy, which he did.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3691

If our understanding be capable of the form, lineaments, port, and face of truth, it might as well see it entire as by halves, springing and imperfect This appearance of likelihood, which makes them rather take the left hand than the right, augments it; multiply this ounce of verisimilitude that turns the scales to a hundred, to a thousand, ounces; it will happen in the end that the balance will itself end the controversy, and determine one choice, one entire truth.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3478

Because they weigh with us, they conclude that they also weigh with him, and that he has a more intent and vigilant regard to them than to others of less moment to us or of ordinary course: _Magna Dii curant, parva negligunt:_ “The gods are concerned at great matters, but slight the small.” Listen to him; he will clear this to you by his reason: _Nec in regnis quidem reges omnia minima curant:_ “Neither indeed do kings in their administration take notice of all the least concerns.” As if to that King of kings it were more or less to subvert a kingdom, or to move the leaf of a tree; or as if his providence acted after another manner in inclining the event of a battle than in the leap of a flea.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6419

I found that if I had wholly to apply myself to such employments, it would require a great deal of change and new modelling in me before I could be any way fit for it: And though I could so far prevail upon myself (and why might I not with time and diligence work such a feat), I would not do it. The little trial I have had of public employment has been so much disgust to me; I feel at times temptations toward ambition rising in my soul, but I obstinately oppose them:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2856

I have not been very solicitous to curb the desires by which I have been importuned. My virtue is a virtue, or rather an innocence, casual and accidental.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2836

If I presuppose that a perfect virtue manifests itself in contending, in patient enduring of pain, and undergoing the uttermost extremity of the gout; without being moved in her seat; if I give her troubles and difficulty for her necessary objects: what will become of a virtue elevated to such a degree, as not only to despise pain, but, moreover, to rejoice in it, and to be tickled with the throes of a sharp colic, such as the Epicureans have established, and of which many of them, by their actions, have given most manifest proofs?

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3619

Now, as to this particular, philosophy has sufficiently armed man to encounter all other accidents either with patience, or, if the search of that costs too dear, by an infallible defeat, in totally depriving himself of all sentiment; but these are expedients that are only of use to a soul being itself, and in its full power, capable of reason and deliberation; but not at all proper for this inconvenience, where, in a philosopher, the soul becomes the soul of a madman, troubled, overturned, and lost; which many occasions may produce, as a too vehement agitation that any violent passion of the soul may beget in itself; or a wound in a certain part of the person, or vapours from the stomach, any of which may stupefy the understanding and turn the brain.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4774

I will here set down two rare and extraordinary events concerning this siege of Alexia; one, that the Gauls having drawn their powers together to encounter Caesar, after they had made a general muster of all their forces, resolved in their council of war to dismiss a good part of this great multitude, that they might not fall into confusion.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5046

And I am so far from expecting to gain any new reputation by these follies, that I shall think I come off pretty well if I lose nothing by them of that little I had before. For besides that this dead and mute painting will take from my natural being, it has no resemblance to my better condition, but is much lapsed from my former vigour and cheerfulness, growing faded and withered: I am towards the bottom of the barrel, which begins to taste of the lees.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3758

Cicero and Diodorus say that in their time the Chaldees kept a register of four hundred thousand and odd years, Aristotle, Pliny, and others, that Zoroaster flourished six thousand years before Plato’s time.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 490

So Diogenes, surnamed the Atheist, answered him in Samothrace, who, showing him in the temple the several offerings and stories in painting of those who had escaped shipwreck, said to him, “Look, you who think the gods have no care of human things, what do you say to so many persons preserved from death by their especial favour?” “Why, I say,” answered he, “that their pictures are not here who were cast away, who are by much the greater number.”--[Cicero, De Natura Deor., i. 37.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1886

do but peep behind the curtain, and you will see no thing more than an ordinary man, and peradventure more contemptible than the meanest of his subjects:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1245

Yet for all this heavy disposition of mine, my mind, when retired into itself, was not altogether without strong movements, solid and clear judgments about those objects it could comprehend, and could also, without any helps, digest them; but, amongst other things, I do really believe, it had been totally impossible to have made it to submit by violence and force. Shall I here acquaint you with one faculty of my youth? I had great assurance of countenance, and flexibility of voice and gesture, in applying myself to any part I undertook to act: for before--

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2708

Augustin, if, on the one hand, it had been proposed to him to bury his writings, from which religion has received so great fruit, or on the other to bury his children, had he had them, had he not rather chosen to bury his children. And I know not whether I had not much rather have begot a very beautiful one, through society with the Muses, than by lying with my wife. To this, such as it is, what I give it I give absolutely and irrevocably, as men do to their bodily children.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2045

says Livy. And so the first thing they did to prevent the mutinies and insurrections of nations of late conquest was to take from them their arms and horses, and therefore it is that we so often meet in Caesar:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5569

[“Dost thou seek causes from above? Why, goddess, has your confidence in me ceased?”--Virgil, AEneid, viii. 395.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4459

And yet the weakness of our condition often pushes us upon the necessity of making use of ill means to a good end. Lycurgus, the most perfect legislator that ever was, virtuous and invented this very unjust practice of making the helots, who were their slaves, drunk by force, to the end that the Spartans, seeing them so lost and buried in wine, might abhor the excess of this vice.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 127

When they were near him he assumed an appearance of gaiety, and flattered them with hopes. I then went to call them.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5292

The solitude that I love myself and recommend to others, is chiefly no other than to withdraw my thoughts and affections into myself; to restrain and check, not my steps, but my own cares and desires, resigning all foreign solicitude, and mortally avoiding servitude and obligation, and not so much the crowd of men as the crowd of business.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2548

I will not here omit, that the last thing I could make them beat into my head, was the memory of this accident, and I had it over and over again repeated to me, whither I was going, from whence I came, and at what time of the day this mischance befell me, before I could comprehend it. As to the manner of my fall, that was concealed from me in favour to him who had been the occasion, and other flim-flams were invented.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 781

[“The power of custom is very great: huntsmen will lie out all night in the snow, or suffer themselves to be burned up by the sun on the mountains; boxers, hurt by the caestus, never utter a groan.”--Cicero, Tusc., ii. 17]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6017

Dignities and offices are of necessity conferred more by fortune than upon the account of merit; and we are often to blame, to condemn kings when these are misplaced: on the contrary, ‘tis a wonder they should have so good luck, where there is so little skill:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3832

These philosophers set a great price upon virtue, and renounce all other discipline but the moral; and yet, in all their actions, they attributed the sovereign authority to the election of their sage, and above the laws; and gave no other curb to voluptuousness but moderation only, and the conservation of the liberty of others.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1545

so were we: but as those who by artificial light put out that of day, so we by borrowed forms and fashions have destroyed our own. And ‘tis plain enough to be seen, that ‘tis custom only which renders that impossible that otherwise is nothing so; for of those nations who have no manner of knowledge of clothing, some are situated under the same temperature that we are, and some in much colder climates.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3986

In the civil wars of Caesar, Lucius Domitius, being taken in the Abruzzi, and thereupon poisoning himself, afterwards repented. It has happened in our time that a certain person, being resolved to die and not having gone deep enough at the first thrust, the sensibility of the flesh opposing his arm, gave himself two or three wounds more, but could never prevail upon himself to thrust home.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6212

Repetition is everywhere troublesome, though it were in Homer; but ‘tis ruinous in things that have only a superficial and transitory show. I do not love over-insisting, even in the most profitable things, as in Seneca; and the usage of his stoical school displeases me, to repeat, upon every subject, at full length and width the principles and presuppositions that serve in general, and always to realledge anew common and universal reasons.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1966

Item, there is a saying that it is a good thing to have a good name, that is to say, credit and a good repute; but besides this, it is really convenient to have a well-sounding name, such as is easy of pronunciation and easy to be remembered, by reason that kings and other great persons do by that means the more easily know and the more hardly forget us; and indeed of our own servants we more frequently call and employ those whose names are most ready upon the tongue.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5171

That cannot fall out here, which I often see elsewhere, that the work and the artificer contradict one another: “Can a man of such sober conversation have written so foolish a book?” Or “Do so learned writings proceed from a man of so weak conversation?” He who talks at a very ordinary rate, and writes rare matter, ‘tis to say that his capacity is borrowed and not his own.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2215

Their repentance consisting in a visible and manifest reparation, they lose the colour of alleging it both to God and man. Are they so impudent as to sue for remission without satisfaction and without penitence? I look upon these as in the same condition with the first: but the obstinacy is not there so easy to be overcome. This contrariety and volubility of opinion so sudden, so violent, that they feign, are a kind of miracle to me: they present us with the state of an indigestible agony of mind.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6786

It is pretty to see that these persons, full of so much fine knowledge, have to imitate this foolish simplicity, and this in the primary actions of virtue; and that our wisdom must learn even from beasts the most profitable instructions in the greatest and most necessary concerns of our life; as, how we are to live and die, manage our property, love and bring up our children, maintain justice: a singular testimony of human infirmity; and that this reason we so handle at our pleasure, finding evermore some diversity and novelty, leaves in us no apparent trace of nature.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2496

I do not believe that the most seared conscience could have counterfeited so great an assurance. He had naturally too high a spirit and was accustomed to too high a fortune, says Titius Livius, to know how to be criminal, and to lower himself to the meanness of defending his innocence. The putting men to the rack is a dangerous invention, and seems to be rather a trial of patience than of truth.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1208

I for my part rather bring in a fine sentence by head and shoulders to fit my purpose, than divert my designs to hunt after a sentence. On the contrary, words are to serve, and to follow a man’s purpose; and let Gascon come in play where French will not do. I would have things so excelling, and so wholly possessing the imagination of him that hears, that he should have something else to do, than to think of words. The way of speaking that I love, is natural and plain, the same in writing as in speaking, and a sinewy and muscular way of expressing a man’s self, short and pithy, not so elegant and artificial as prompt and vehement;

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2270

Advise to choose weapons of the shortest sort An ignorance that knowledge creates and begets Ashamed to lay out as much thought and study upon it Can neither keep nor enjoy anything with a good grace Change of fashions Chess: this idle and childish game Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato Death of old age the most rare and very seldom seen Diogenes, esteeming us no better than flies or bladders Do not to pray that all things may go as we would have them Excel above the common rate in frivolous things Expresses more contempt and condemnation than the other Fancy that others cannot believe otherwise than as he does Gradations above and below pleasure Greatest apprehensions, from things unseen, concealed He did not think mankind worthy of a wise man’s concern Home anxieties and a mind enslaved by wearing complaints How infirm and decaying material this fabric of ours is I do not willingly alight when I am once on horseback Led by the ears by this charming harmony of words Little knacks and frivolous subtleties Men approve of things for their being rare and new Must of necessity walk in the steps of another Natural death the most rare and very seldom seen Not to instruct but to be instructed.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7061

When Socrates, after his fetters were knocked off, felt the pleasure of that itching which the weight of them had caused in his legs, he rejoiced to consider the strict alliance betwixt pain and pleasure; how they are linked together by a necessary connection, so that by turns they follow and mutually beget one another; and cried out to good AEsop, that he ought out of this consideration to have taken matter for a fine fable.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4013

[“If a brazen tower had not held Danae, you would not, Danae, have been made a mother by Jove.”--Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 27.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4129

and peradventure, for this reason it was that Timon, railing at him, called him the great forger of miracles. Seeing that men, by their insufficiency, cannot pay themselves well enough with current money, let the counterfeit be superadded. ‘Tis a way that has been practised by all the legislators: and there is no government that has not some mixture either of ceremonial vanity or of false opinion, that serves for a curb to keep the people in their duty.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 846

All sorts of new disorders easily draw, from this primitive and ever-flowing fountain, examples and precedents to trouble and discompose our government: we read in our very laws, made for the remedy of this first evil, the beginning and pretences of all sorts of wicked enterprises; and that befalls us, which Thucydides said of the civil wars of his time, that, in favour of public vices, they gave them new and more plausible names for their excuse, sweetening and disguising their true titles; which must be done, forsooth, to reform our conscience and belief:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5184

“Tuo tibi judicio est utendum.... Virtutis et vitiorum grave ipsius conscientiae pondus est: qua sublata, jacent omnia.”

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2599

And seeing that nature appears to have recommended it to us, having regard to the extension and progression of the successive pieces of this machine of hers, ‘tis no wonder if, on the contrary, that of children towards their parents is not so great.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3339

And although he does not find in himself this proper and singular sign of judging, and that he perceives that he ought not to engage his consent, considering that there may be some false, equal to these true appearances, yet does he not, for all that, fail of carrying on the offices of his life with great liberty and convenience. How many arts are there that profess to consist more in conjecture than knowledge; that decide not on true and false, and only follow that which seems so!

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 587

I find it less exempt from traverses and inconveniences than virtue itself; and, besides that the enjoyment is more momentary, fluid, and frail, it has its watchings, fasts, and labours, its sweat and its blood; and, moreover, has particular to itself so many several sorts of sharp and wounding passions, and so dull a satiety attending it, as equal it to the severest penance.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6345

You teach your best friends to be cruel perforce; hardening wife and children by long use neither to regard nor to lament your sufferings. The groans of the stone are grown so familiar to my people, that nobody takes any notice of them. And though we should extract some pleasure from their conversation (which does not always happen, by reason of the disparity of conditions, which easily begets contempt or envy toward any one whatever), is it not too much to make abuse of this half a lifetime?

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3228

The first law that ever God gave to man was a law of pure obedience; it was a commandment naked and simple, wherein man had nothing to inquire after, nor to dispute; forasmuch as to obey is the proper office of a rational soul, acknowledging a heavenly superior and benefactor. From obedience and submission spring all other virtues, as all sin does from selfopinion.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4163

But to return to what concerns myself; I think it would be very difficult for any other man to have a meaner opinion of himself; nay, for any other to have a meaner opinion of me than of myself: I look upon myself as one of the common sort, saving in this, that I have no better an opinion of myself; guilty of the meanest and most popular defects, but not disowning or excusing them; and I do not value myself upon any other account than because I know my own value.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1355

The ancient Menander declared him to be happy that had had the good fortune to meet with but the shadow of a friend: and doubtless he had good reason to say so, especially if he spoke by experience: for in good earnest, if I compare all the rest of my life, though, thanks be to God, I have passed my time pleasantly enough, and at my ease, and the loss of such a friend excepted, free from any grievous affliction, and in great tranquillity of mind, having been contented with my natural and original commodities, without being solicitous after others; if I should compare it all, I say, with the four years I had the happiness to enjoy the sweet society of this excellent man, ‘tis nothing but smoke, an obscure and tedious night. From the day that I lost him:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6273

“Tunc quoque, cum pax est, trepidant formidine belli.... Quoties Romam fortuna lacessit; Hac iter est bellis.... Melius, Fortuna, dedisses Orbe sub Eco sedem, gelidaque sub Arcto, Errantesque domos.”

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6125

[“‘Tis not by the value of possessions, but by our daily subsistence and tillage, that our riches are truly estimated.” --Cicero, Paradox, vi. 3.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5082

“Ea non media, sed nulla via est, velut eventum exspectantium, quo fortunae consilia sua applicent.”

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2870

These are sharp, unsubstantial subleties, with which philosophy sometimes amuses itself. I follow some vices, but I fly others as much as a saint would do. The Peripatetics also disown this indissoluble connection; and Aristotle is of opinion that a prudent and just man may be intemperate and inconsistent. Socrates confessed to some who had discovered a certain inclination to vice in his physiognomy, that it was, in truth, his natural propension, but that he had by discipline corrected it.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne

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