Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7105

There is indeed this difference, that ‘tis better to oblige one’s appetite to things that are most easy to be had; but ‘tis always vice to oblige one’s self. I formerly said a kinsman of mine was overnice, who, by being in our galleys, had unlearned the use of beds and to undress when he went to sleep.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2272

The faintness that surprises in the exercises of Venus Thucydides: which was the better wrestler To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular To make little things appear great was his profession To smell, though well, is to stink Valour will cause a trembling in the limbs as well as fear Viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age We can never be despised according to our full desert When we have got it, we want something else Women who paint, pounce, and plaster up their ruins

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2917

The ancient Xantippus caused his dog to be interred on an eminence near the sea, which has ever since retained the name, and Plutarch says, that he had a scruple about selling for a small profit to the slaughterer an ox that had been long in his service.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3502

_Ita est informatum et anticipatum mentibus nostris, ut homini, quum de Deo cogitet, forma occurrat hu-mana._ “It is so imprinted in our minds, and the fancy is so prepossessed with it, that when a man thinks of God, a human figure ever presents itself to the imagination.” Therefore it was that Xenophanes pleasantly said, “That if beasts frame any gods to themselves, as ‘tis likely they do, they make them certainly such as themselves are, and glorify themselves in it, as we do.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6566

Let us not attempt these examples; we shall never come up to them. They set themselves resolutely, and without agitation, to behold the ruin of their country, which possessed and commanded all their will: this is too much, and too hard a task for our commoner souls. Cato gave up the noblest life that ever was upon this account; we meaner spirits must fly from the storm as far as we can; we must provide for sentiment, and not for patience, and evade the blows we cannot meet.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5710

We are, almost throughout, unjust judges of their actions, as they are of ours. I confess the truth when it makes against me, as well as when ‘tis on my side. ‘Tis an abominable intemperance that pushes them on so often to change, and that will not let them limit their affection to any one person whatever; as is evident in that goddess to whom are attributed so many changes and so many lovers.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4699

“There is,” says he, “no comparison, either in the number of victories or in the hazard of battles, for Lysander only gained two naval battles.” This is not to derogate from the Romans; for having only simply named them with the Greeks, he can have done them no injury, what disparity soever there may be betwixt them and Plutarch does not entirely oppose them to one another; there is no preference in general; he only compares the pieces and circumstances one after another, and gives of every one a particular and separate judgment.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 36

The passage of Montaigne through Switzerland is not without interest, as we see there how our philosophical traveller accommodated himself everywhere to the ways of the country. The hotels, the provisions, the Swiss cookery, everything, was agreeable to him; it appears, indeed, as if he preferred to the French manners and tastes those of the places he was visiting, and of which the simplicity and freedom (or frankness) accorded more with his own mode of life and thinking.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1323

We sought one another long before we met, and by the characters we heard of one another, which wrought upon our affections more than, in reason, mere reports should do; I think ‘twas by some secret appointment of heaven. We embraced in our names; and at our first meeting, which was accidentally at a great city entertainment, we found ourselves so mutually taken with one another, so acquainted, and so endeared betwixt ourselves, that from thenceforward nothing was so near to us as one another.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2086

But I find fault with their singular indiscretion in suffering themselves to be so blinded and imposed upon by the authority of the present usage as every month to alter their opinion, if custom so require, and that they should so vary their judgment in their own particular concern.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2066

[“The career of a horse without a bridle is ungraceful; the neck extended stiff, and the nose thrust out.”--Livy, xxxv. II.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5641

I readily correct an accidental error, of which I am full, as I run carelessly on; but for my ordinary and constant imperfections, it were a kind of treason to put them out.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4362

[“A slap on his eye, a slap on his snout, a slap on Sagoin’s back.”--Marot. Fripelippes, Valet de Marot a Sagoin.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2824

I borrow from the vulgar opinion, which is false, notwithstanding the witty conceit of Arcesilaus in answer to one, who, being reproached that many scholars went from his school to the Epicurean, but never any from thence to his school, said in answer, “I believe it indeed; numbers of capons being made out of cocks, but never any cocks out of capons.” --[Diogenes Laertius, Life of Archesilaus, lib.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4819

What are become of all the provisions we have so many years laid up against the accidents of fortune? Is Nero’s cruelty unknown to us?

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3759

Plato says that they of the city of Sais have records in writing of eight thousand years; and that the city of Athens was built a thousand years before the said city of Sais; Epicurus, that at the same time things are here in the posture we see, they are alike and in the same manner in several other worlds; which he would have delivered with greater assurance, had he seen the similitude and concordance of the new discovered world of the West Indies with ours, present and past, in so many strange examples.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3451

and that all the kinds are multiplied in some number; by which it seems not to be likely that God should have made this work only without a companion; and that the matter of this form should have been totally drained in this individual.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2757

I also love Lucan, and willingly read him, not so much for his style, as for his own worth, and the truth and solidity of his opinions and judgments. As for good Terence, the refined elegance and grace of the Latin tongue, I find him admirable in his vivid representation of our manners and the movements of the soul; our actions throw me at every turn upon him; and I cannot read him so often that I do not still discover some new grace and beauty.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3270

We find several other like precepts, whereby we are permitted to borrow frivolous appearances from the vulgar, where we find the strongest reason will not answer the purpose, provided they administer satisfaction and comfort Where they cannot cure the wound, they are content to palliate and benumb it I believe they will not deny this, that if they could add order and constancy in a state of life that could maintain itself in ease and pleasure by some debility of judgment, they would accept it:--

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5896

God meritoriously permitted that all this great plunder should be swallowed up by the sea in transportation, or in the civil wars wherewith they devoured one another; and most of the men themselves were buried in a foreign land without any fruit of their victory.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3648

Observe her progress elsewhere: “The soul that has lived well is reunited to the stars to which it is assigned; that which has lived ill removes into a woman, and if it do not there reform, is again removed into a beast of condition suitable to its vicious manners, and shall see no end of its punishments till it be returned to its natural constitution, and that it has, by the force of reason, purged itself from those gross, stupid, and elementary qualities it was polluted with.” But I will not omit the objection the Epicureans make against this transmigration from one body to another; ‘tis a pleasant one; they ask what expedient would be found out if the number of the dying should chance to be greater than that of those who are coming into the world.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6802

If we have not known how to live, ‘tis injustice to teach us how to die, and make the end difform from all the rest; if we have known how to live firmly and quietly, we shall know how to die so too. They may boast as much as they please:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 455

The pleader’s part is, doubtless, much harder than that of the preacher; and yet, in my opinion, we see more passable lawyers than preachers, at all events in France. It should seem that the nature of wit is to have its operation prompt and sudden, and that of judgment to have it more deliberate and more slow. But he who remains totally silent, for want of leisure to prepare himself to speak well, and he also whom leisure does noways benefit to better speaking, are equally unhappy.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7053

I am obliged to Fortune for having so often assaulted me with the same sort of weapons: she forms and fashions me by use, hardens and habituates me, so that I can know within a little for how much I shall be quit.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6509

This sharpness and violence of desires more hinder than they advance the execution of what we undertake; fill us with impatience against slow or contrary events, and with heat and suspicion against those with whom we have to do. We never carry on that thing well by which we are prepossessed and led:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6013

[“Just like an ape, simulator of the human face, whom a wanton boy has dizened up in rich silks above, but left the lower parts bare, for a laughing-stock for the tables.” --Claudian, in Eutrop., i 303.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 889

I let nature work, supposing her to be sufficiently armed with teeth and claws to defend herself from the assaults of infirmity, and to uphold that contexture, the dissolution of which she flies and abhors. I am afraid, lest, instead of assisting her when close grappled and struggling with disease, I should assist her adversary, and burden her still more with work to do.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7182

Nevertheless I compose myself to lose mine without regret; but withal as a thing that is perishable by its condition, not that it molests or annoys me. Nor does it properly well become any not to be displeased when they die, excepting such as are pleased to live. There is good husbandry in enjoying it: I enjoy it double to what others do; for the measure of its fruition depends upon our more or less application to it. Chiefly that I perceive mine to be so short in time, I desire to extend it in weight; I will stop the promptitude of its flight by the promptitude of my grasp; and by the vigour of using it compensate the speed of its running away. In proportion as the possession of life is more short, I must make it so much deeper and fuller.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1774

Besides, this ought to be our comfort, that naturally, if the pain be violent, ‘tis but short; and if long, nothing violent:

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5192

I had rather have a great deal less in hand, and do not expose myself to the world upon any other account than my present share; when I leave it I quit the rest. See this functionary whom the people escort in state, with wonder and applause, to his very door; he puts off the pageant with his robe, and falls so much the lower by how much he was higher exalted: in himself within, all is tumult and degraded.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2539

[“They relate that scythe-bearing chariots mow off limbs, so that they quiver on the ground; and yet the mind of him from whom the limb is taken by the swiftness of the blow feels no pain.” --Lucretius, iii. 642.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1221

I do not, however, believe that to be the only cause. So it is, that the expedient my father found out for this was, that in my infancy, and before I began to speak, he committed me to the care of a German, who since died a famous physician in France, totally ignorant of our language, and very fluent and a great critic in Latin.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5190

Such a one has been a miracle to the world, in whom neither his wife nor servant has ever seen anything so much as remarkable; few men have been admired by their own domestics; no one was ever a prophet, not merely in his own house, but in his own country, says the experience of histories: --[No man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre, said Marshal Catinat]--‘tis the same in things of nought, and in this low example the image of a greater is to be seen.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6831

I have seen books made of things that were never either studied or understood; the author committing to several of his learned friends the examination of this and t’other matter to compile it, contenting himself, for his share, with having projected the design, and by his industry to have tied together this faggot of unknown provisions; the ink and paper, at least, are his.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 932

But it is quite otherwise; for our soul stretches and dilates itself proportionably as it fills; and in the examples of elder times, we see, quite contrary, men very proper for public business, great captains, and great statesmen very learned withal.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6615

Alcibiades, in Plato, had rather die young, beautiful, rich, noble, and learned, and all this in full excellence, than to stop short of such condition; this disease is, peradventure, excusable in so strong and so full a soul.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6606

I wish them all imaginable good; and assuredly had occasion been, there is nothing I would have spared for their service; I did for them as I would have done for myself. ‘Tis a good, warlike, and generous people, but capable of obedience and discipline, and of whom the best use may be made, if well guided. They say also that my administration passed over without leaving any mark or trace. Good! They moreover accuse my cessation in a time when everybody almost was convicted of doing too much.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5243

My reason is much more free in prosperity, and much more distracted, and put to’t to digest pains than pleasures: I see best in a clear sky; health admonishes me more cheerfully, and to better purpose, than sickness.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1298

Besides, why is it necessary that the correspondence of manners, parts, and inclinations, which begets the true and perfect friendships, should always meet in these relations? The father and the son may be of quite contrary humours, and so of brothers: he is my son, he is my brother; but he is passionate, ill-natured, or a fool.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 193

And, at all events, it will be always an honour to me, to be able to do anything which shall be for the pleasure of you and yours, on account of the obligation under which I lie to serve you.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3811

I have heard of a judge who, coming upon a sharp conflict betwixt Bartolus and Aldus, and some point controverted with many contrarieties, writ in the margin of his book, “a question for a friend;” that is to say, that truth was there so controverted and disputed that in a like cause he might favour which of the parties he thought fit ‘Twas only for want of wit that he did not write “a question for a friend” throughout.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6496

And whereas the knowledge they had had of my late father, and the honour they had for his memory, had alone incited them to confer this favour upon me, I plainly told them that I should be very sorry anything should make so great an impression upon me as their affairs and the concerns of their city had made upon him, whilst he held the government to which they had preferred me.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 756

Such as are addicted to the pleasures of the field, have, I make no question, heard the story of the falconer, who having earnestly fixed his eyes upon a kite in the air; laid a wager that he would bring her down with the sole power of his sight, and did so, as it was said; for the tales I borrow I charge upon the consciences of those from whom I have them.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7110

But so soon as the chance of war turned, she changed her will with the change of fortune, and bravely turned to her husband’s side, whom she accompanied throughout, where his ruin carried him: admitting, as it appears to me, no other choice than to cleave to the side that stood most in need of her, and where she could best manifest her compassion.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 271

We keep a vigilant eye on our gates and guards, and we look after them a little more attentively in your absence, which makes me apprehensive, not merely on account of the preservation of the town, but likewise for your oven sake, knowing that the enemies of the king feel how necessary you are to his service, and how ill we should prosper without you.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4336

my adopted daughter; and certainly beloved by me more than paternally, and enveloped in my retirement and solitude as one of the best parts of my own being: I have no longer regard to anything in this world but her.

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 679

[“Live triumphing over as many ages as you will, death still will remain eternal.”--Lucretius, iii. 1103]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4285

[“While the mind is in doubt, in a short time it is impelled this way and that.”--Terence, Andr., i. 6, 32.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6869

I still insisted upon the truce, too willing they should have the gain of what they had already taken from me, which was not to be despised, without promise of any other ransom. After two or three hours that we had been in this place, and that they had mounted me upon a horse that was not likely to run from them, and committed me to the guard of fifteen or twenty harquebusiers, and dispersed my servants to others, having given order that they should carry us away prisoners several ways, and I being already got some two or three musket-shots from the place,

Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2907

[“Beasts, out of opinion of some benefit received by them, were consecrated by barbarians”--Cicero, De Natura Deor., i. 36.]

Essays of Michel de Montaigne

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