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 32 of 145
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Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5198
As they who judge and try us within, make no great account of the lustre of our public actions, and see they are only streaks and rays of clear water springing from a slimy and muddy bottom so, likewise, they who judge of us by this gallant outward appearance, in like manner conclude of our internal constitution; and cannot couple common faculties, and like their own, with the other faculties that astonish them, and are so far out of their sight.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5519
[“No milk-white dove, or if there be a thing more lascivious, takes so much delight in kissing as woman, wishful for every man she sees.”--Catullus, lxvi. 125.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6971
They make such a description of our maladies as a town crier does of a lost horse or dog--such a color, such a height, such an ear--but bring it to him and he knows it not, for all that. If physic should one day give me some good and visible relief, then truly I will cry out in good earnest:
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1171
[“There is a vast difference betwixt forbearing to sin, and not knowing how to sin.”--Seneca, Ep., 90]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6180
Necessity reconciles and brings men together; and this accidental connection afterwards forms itself into laws: for there have been such, as savage as any human opinion could conceive, who, nevertheless, have maintained their body with as much health and length of life as any Plato or Aristotle could invent. And certainly, all these descriptions of polities, feigned by art, are found to be ridiculous and unfit to be put in practice.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1585
“Tutumque putavit Jam bonus esse socer; lacrymae non sponte cadentes, Effudit, gemitusque expressit pectore laeto;”
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5022
Is there any one of those who have suffered themselves to be persuaded into this miserable subjection, who does not equally surrender himself to all sorts of impostures? who does not give up himself to the mercy of whoever has the impudence to promise him a cure? The Babylonians carried their sick into the public square; the physician was the people: every one who passed by being in humanity and civility obliged to inquire of their condition, gave some advice according to his own experience.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5851
“Quoties nos descendentis arenae Vidimus in partes, ruptaque voragine terrae Emersisse feras, et eisdem saepe latebris Aurea cum croceo creverunt arbuta libro!.... Nec solum nobis silvestria cernere monstra Contigit; aequoreos ego cum certantibus ursis Spectavi vitulos, et equorum nomine dignum, Sen deforme pecus, quod in illo nascitur amni....”
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3512
Pallada Cecropidæ, Minola Creta Dianam, Vulcanum tellus Hypsipylea colit, Junonem Sparte, Pelopeladesque Mycenæ; Pinigerum Fauni Mænalis ora caput; Mars Latio venerandus.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6699
He was also always one and the same, and raised himself, not by starts but by complexion, to the highest pitch of vigour; or, to say better, mounted not at all, but rather brought down, reduced, and subjected all asperities and difficulties to his original and natural condition; for in Cato ‘tis most manifest that ‘tis a procedure extended far beyond the common ways of men: in the brave exploits of his life, and in his death, we find him always mounted upon the great horse; whereas the other ever creeps upon the ground, and with a gentle and ordinary pace, treats of the most useful matters, and bears himself, both at his death and in the rudest difficulties that could present themselves, in the ordinary way of human life.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3667
Keep yourselves in the common road; it is not good to be so subtle and cunning. Remember the Tuscan proverb:--
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5193
And though all should be regular there, it will require a vivid and well-chosen judgment to perceive it in these low and private actions; to which may be added, that order is a dull, sombre virtue. To enter a breach, conduct an embassy, govern a people, are actions of renown; to reprehend, laugh, sell, pay, love, hate, and gently and justly converse with a man’s own family and with himself; not to relax, not to give a man’s self the lie, is more rare and hard, and less remarkable.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 67
Such is what passed between Montaigne and these two personages at that time; but when the Essayist was leaving, and went to bid them farewell, they used very different language to him.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5220
For my own part, I may desire in general to be other than I am; I may condemn and dislike my whole form, and beg of Almighty God for an entire reformation, and that He will please to pardon my natural infirmity: but I ought not to call this repentance, methinks, no more than the being dissatisfied that I am not an angel or Cato.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 235
To the Jurats of Bordeaux.--[Published from the original among the archives of the town of Bordeaux, M. Gustave Brunet in the Bulletin du Bibliophile, July 1839.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5153
And whereas one told the Mamertini that statutes were of no efficacy against armed men; and another told the tribune of the people that the time of justice and of war were distinct things; and a third said that the noise of arms deafened the voice of laws, this man was not precluded from listening to the laws of civility and pure courtesy.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4775
This example of fearing to be too many is new; but, to take it right, it stands to reason that the body of an army should be of a moderate greatness, and regulated to certain bounds, both out of respect to the difficulty of providing for them, and the difficulty of governing and keeping them in order. At least it is very easy to make it appear by example that armies monstrous in number have seldom done anything to purpose.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2312
Since ambition can teach man valour, 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 heart of tender virgins in their mothers’ arms:
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3915
Tantaque in his rebas distantia differitasque est, Ut quod aliis cibus est, aliis fuat acre venenum. Sæpe etenim serpens, hominis contacta salivà, Disperit, ac sese mandendo conficit ipsa:
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3004
When I play with my cat who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me? We mutually divert one another with our play. If I have my hour to begin or to refusç, she also has hers.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3739
The facility that good wits have of rendering every thing likely they would recommend, and that nothing is so strange to which they do not undertake to give colour enough to deceive such simplicity as mine, this evidently shows the weakness of their testimony.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2761
They must find out something to lean to; and not having of their own stuff wherewith to entertain us, they bring in the story to supply the defect of language. It is quite otherwise with my author; the elegance and perfection of his way of speaking makes us lose the appetite of his plot; his refined grace and elegance of diction everywhere occupy us: he is so pleasant throughout,
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4643
Such as have had to do with testy and obstinate women, may have experimented into what a rage it puts them to oppose silence and coldness to their fury, and that a man disdains to nourish their anger.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6198
[“If the goddess Salus herself wish to save this family, she absolutely cannot”--Terence, Adelph., iv. 7, 43.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2848
Now, that it is not more noble, by a high and divine resolution, to hinder the birth of temptations, and to be so formed to virtue, that the very seeds of vice are rooted out, than to hinder by main force their progress; and, having suffered ourselves to be surprised with the first motions of the passions, to arm ourselves and to stand firm to oppose their progress, and overcome them; and that this second effect is not also much more generous than to be simply endowed with a facile and affable nature, of itself disaffected to debauchery and vice, I do not think can be doubted; for this third and last sort of virtue seems to render a man innocent, but not virtuous; free from doing ill, but not apt enough to do well: considering also, that this condition is so near neighbour to imperfection and cowardice, that I know not very well how to separate the confines and distinguish them: the very names of goodness and innocence are, for this reason, in some sort grown into contempt.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5313
He who has nothing to do but only to discharge his body of a natural necessity, need not trouble others with so curious preparations: it is not meat for a gross, coarse appetite.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4403
Pleasure chews and grinds us; according to the old Greek verse, which says that the gods sell us all the goods they give us; that is to say, that they give us nothing pure and perfect, and that we do not purchase but at the price of some evil.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 72
It was no longer the journal of a traveller which he kept, but the diary of an invalid,--[“I am reading Montaigne’s Travels, which have lately been found; there is little in them but the baths and medicines he took, and what he had everywhere for dinner.”--H.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2838
There was, methinks, something in the virtue of this man too sprightly and fresh to stop there; I believe that, without doubt, he felt a pleasure and delight in so noble an action, and was more pleased in it than in any other of his life:
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2028
There is nothing I hate so much as driving a bargain Thou wilt not feel it long if thou feelest it too much Tis the sharpnss of our mind that gives the edge to our pains Titles being so dearly bought Twenty people prating about him when he is at stool Valour whetted and enraged by mischance What can they not do; what do they fear to do (for beauty)
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4905
I try myself in the depth of my suffering, and have always found that I was in a capacity to speak, think, and give a rational answer as well as at any other time, but not so firmly, being troubled and interrupted by the pain. When I am looked upon by my visitors to be in the greatest torment, and that they therefore forbear to trouble me, I often essay my own strength, and myself set some discourse on foot, the most remote I can contrive from my present condition.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3470
See what use they make of this irreverent way of speaking; in the present disputes about our religion, if you press its adversaries too hard, they will roundly tell you, “that it is not in the power of God to make it so, that his body should be in paradise and upon earth, and in several places at once.” And see, too, what advantage the old scoffer made of this.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6651
So does our sight often represent to us strange images at a distance that vanish on approaching near:
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 969
If the rule which Protagoras proposed to his pupils were followed --either that they should give him his own demand, or make affidavit upon oath in the temple how much they valued the profit they had received under his tuition, and satisfy him accordingly--my pedagogues would find themselves sorely gravelled, if they were to be judged by the affidavits of my experience.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3298
We talk indeed of power, truth, justice; which are words that signify some great thing; but that thing we neither see nor conceive at all. We say that God fears, that God is angry, that God loves,
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3916
“And in those things the difference is so great That what’s one’s poison is another’s meat; For serpents often have been seen, ‘tis said, When touch’d with human spittle, to go mad, And bite themselves to death:”
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 611
Another was choked with a grape-stone;--[Val. Max., ix. 12, ext. 2.]--an emperor killed with the scratch of a comb in combing his head. AEmilius Lepidus with a stumble at his own threshold,--[Pliny, Nat. Hist., vii. 33.]-- and Aufidius with a jostle against the door as he entered the council-chamber.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2120
Amongst the functions of the soul, there are some of a lower and meaner form; he who does not see her in those inferior offices as well as in those of nobler note, never fully discovers her; and, peradventure, she is best shown where she moves her simpler pace.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6422
I find that elevated souls are not much more proper for mean things than mean souls are for high ones. Could it be imagined that Socrates should have administered occasion of laughter, at the expense of his own reputation, to the Athenians for: having never been able to sum up the votes of his tribe, to deliver it to the council?
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6994
The best of my bodily conditions is that I am flexible and not very obstinate: I have inclinations more my own and ordinary, and more agreeable than others; but I am diverted from them with very little ado, and easily slip into a contrary course. A young man ought to cross his own rules, to awaken his vigour and to keep it from growing faint and rusty; and there is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is carried on by rule and discipline;
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5868
[“But, as I am of opinion, the whole of the world is of recent origin, nor had its commencement in remote times; wherefore it is that some arts are still being refined, and some just on the increase; at present many additions are being made to shipping.” --Lucretius, v. 331.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 482
“Nam istis, qui linguam avium intelligunt, Plusque ex alieno jecore sapiunt, quam ex suo, Magis audiendum, quam auscultandum, censeo.”
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4512
Besides the injustice and unworthiness of such an action, of engaging other strength and valour in the protection of your honour than your own, I conceive it a disadvantage to a brave man, and who wholly relies upon himself, to shuffle his fortune with that of a second; every one runs hazard enough himself without hazarding for another, and has enough to do to assure himself in his own valour for the defence of his life, without intrusting a thing so dear in a third man’s hand.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3019
The swallows that we see at the return of the spring, searching all the corners of our houses for the most commodious places wherein to build their nest; do they seek without judgment, and amongst a thousand choose out the most proper for their purpose, without discretion? And in that elegant and admirable contexture of their buildings, can birds rather make choice of a square figure than a round, of an obtuse than of a right angle, without knowing their properties and effects?
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6182
By what means soever we may have the privilege to redress and reform it anew, we can hardly writhe it from its wonted bent, but we shall break all. Solon being asked whether he had established the best laws he could for the Athenians; “Yes,” said he, “of those they would have received.” Varro excuses himself after the same manner: “that if he were to begin to write of religion, he would say what he believed; but seeing it was already received, he would write rather according to use than nature.”
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6629
‘Tis now two or three years ago that they made the year ten days shorter in France.--[By the adoption of the Gregorian calendar.]--How many changes may we expect should follow this reformation! it was really moving heaven and earth at once.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1246
I played the chief parts in the Latin tragedies of Buchanan, Guerente, and Muret, that were presented in our College of Guienne with great dignity: now Andreas Goveanus, our principal, as in all other parts of his charge, was, without comparison, the best of that employment in France; and I was looked upon as one of the best actors. ‘Tis an exercise that I do not disapprove in young people of condition; and I have since seen our princes, after the example of some of the ancients, in person handsomely and commendably perform these exercises; it was even allowed to persons of quality to make a profession of it in Greece.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4824
But all these incisions being not yet enough to make him die, he commanded Statius Anneus, his physician, to give him a draught of poison, which had not much better effect; for by reason of the weakness and coldness of his limbs, it could not arrive at his heart.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 810
And does she not, by her own precept, instruct the most ignorant vulgar, and make them perfect in things which all the philosophy in the world could never beat into the heads of the wisest men?
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5134
‘Tis said, that Witold, Prince of Lithuania, introduced into the nation the practice that the criminal condemned to death should with his own hand execute the sentence, thinking it strange that a third person, innocent of the fault, should be made guilty of homicide.