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 86 of 145
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Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4662
As age renders my humours more sharp, I study to oppose them, and will, if I can, order it so, that for the future I may be so much the less peevish and hard to please, as I have more excuse and inclination to be so, although I have heretofore been reckoned amongst those who have the greatest patience.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3580
Whoever should bundle up a lusty faggot of the fooleries of human wisdom would produce wonders. I willingly muster up these few for a pattern, by a certain meaning not less profitable to consider than the most sound and moderate instructions. Let us judge by these what opinion we are to have of man, of his sense and reason, when in these great persons that have raised human knowledge so high, so many gross mistakes and manifest errors are to be found.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2474
In our fathers’ days, Monsieur de Boutieres had like to have lost Turin from having, while engaged in good company at supper, delayed to read information that was sent him of the treason plotted against that city where he commanded. And this very Plutarch has given me to understand, that Julius Caesar had preserved himself, if, going to the Senate the day he was assassinated by the conspirators, he had read a note which was presented to him by, the way.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 710
Augustine makes mention of another, who, upon the hearing of any lamentable or doleful cries, would presently fall into a swoon, and be so far out of himself, that it was in vain to call, bawl in his ears, pinch or burn him, till he voluntarily came to himself; and then he would say, that he had heard voices as it were afar off, and did feel when they pinched and burned him; and, to prove that this was no obstinate dissimulation in defiance of his sense of feeling, it was manifest, that all the while he had neither pulse nor breathing.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2655
If by accident they fall first into his own hand, being used to trust somebody to read them to him; he reads extempore what he thinks fit, and often makes such a one ask him pardon who abuses and rails at him in his letter. In short, he sees nothing, but by an image prepared and designed beforehand and the most satisfactory they can invent, not to rouse and awaken his ill humour and choler.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5979
I love and honour knowledge as much as they that have it, and in its true use ‘tis the most noble and the greatest acquisition of men; but in such as I speak of (and the number of them is infinite), who build their fundamental sufficiency and value upon it, who appeal from their understanding to their memory:
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1187
Going one day to Orleans, I met in that plain on this side Clery, two pedants who were travelling towards Bordeaux, about fifty paces distant from one another; and, a good way further behind them, I discovered a troop of horse, with a gentleman at the head of them, who was the late Monsieur le Comte de la Rochefoucauld.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3878
He cannot avoid owning that the senses are the sovereign lords of his knowledge; but they are uncertain, and falsifiable in all circumstances; ‘tis there that he is to fight it out to the last; and if his just forces fail him, as they do, to supply that defect with obstinacy, temerity, and impudence.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6575
I am betimes sensible of the little breezes that begin to sing and whistle within, forerunners of the storm:
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7067
And here is another particular benefit of my disease; which is, that it almost plays its game by itself, and lets ‘me play mine, if I have only courage to do it; for, in its greatest fury, I have endured it ten hours together on horseback. Do but endure only; you need no other regimen play, run, dine, do this and t’other, if you can; your debauch will do you more good than harm; say as much to one that has the pox, the gout, or hernia!
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2364
Let us leave that other sect, that sets up an express profession of scornful superiority--[The Stoics.]--: but when even in that sect, reputed the most quiet and gentle, we hear these rhodomontades of Metrodorus:
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4565
And because he maintained the imbecility of human judgment to be so extreme as to be incapable of any choice or inclination, and would have it perpetually wavering and suspended, considering and receiving all things as indifferent, ‘tis said, that he always comforted himself after the same manner and countenance: if he had begun a discourse, he would always end what he had to say, though the person he was speaking to had gone away: if he walked, he never stopped for any impediment that stood in his way, being preserved from precipices, collision with carts, and other like accidents, by the care of his friends: for, to fear or to avoid anything, had been to shock his own propositions, which deprived the senses themselves of all election and certainty.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6454
I have had a hundred quarrels in defending Pompey and for the cause of Brutus; this acquaintance yet continues betwixt us; we have no other hold even on present things but by fancy.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2412
Security, indolence, impassability, the privation of the evils of this life, which we pretend to purchase at the price of dying, are of no manner of advantage to us: that man evades war to very little purpose who can have no fruition of peace; and as little to the purpose does he avoid trouble who cannot enjoy repose.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3377
_Non tam id sensisse quod dicerent, quam exercere ingénia materio difficultate videntur voluisse._ “They seem not so much themselves to have believed what they said, as to have had a mind to exercise their wits in the difficulty of the matter.” And if we did not take it thus, how should we palliate so great inconstancy, variety, and vanity of opinions, as we see have been produced by those excellent and admirable men?
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6716
To see the trouble that Seneca gives himself to fortify himself against death; to see him so sweat and pant to harden and encourage himself, and bustle so long upon this perch, would have lessened his reputation with me, had he not very bravely held himself at the last. His so ardent and frequent agitations discover that he was in himself impetuous and passionate,
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6281
I ordinarily answer such as ask me the reason of my travels, “That I know very well what I fly from, but not what I seek.” If they tell me that there may be as little soundness amongst foreigners, and that their manners are no better than ours: I first reply, that it is hard to be believed;
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4036
The Greek histories make mention of the Argippians, neighbours to Scythia, who live without either rod or stick for offence; where not only no one attempts to attack them, but whoever can fly thither is safe, by reason of their virtue and sanctity of life, and no one is so bold as to lay hands upon them; and they have applications made to them to determine the controversies that arise betwixt men of other countries. There is a certain nation, where the enclosures of gardens and fields they would preserve, are made only of a string of cotton; and, so fenced, is more firm and secure than by our hedges and ditches.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6943
The difficulties and obscurity are not discerned in any science but by those who are got into it; for a certain degree of intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not, and we must push against a door to know whether it be bolted against us or no: whence this Platonic subtlety springs, that “neither they who know are to enquire, forasmuch as they know; nor they who do not know, forasmuch as to inquire they must know what they inquire of.” So in this, “of knowing a man’s self,” that every man is seen so resolved and satisfied with himself, that every man thinks himself sufficiently intelligent, signifies that every one knows nothing about the matter; as Socrates gives Euthydemus to understand.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3398
Strato says that ‘tis nature, she having the power of generation, augmentation, and diminution, without form and sentiment Zeno says ‘tis the law of nature, commanding good and prohibiting evil; which law is an animal; and takes away the accustomed gods, Jupiter, Juno, and Vesta. Diogenes Apolloniates, that ‘tis air. Zenophanes makes God round, seeing and hearing, not breathing, and having nothing in common with human nature.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4245
A man must not always tell all, for that were folly: but what a man says should be what he thinks, otherwise ‘tis knavery.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 246
To Mademoiselle PAULMIER.--[This letter, at the time of the publication of the variorum edition of 1854, appears to have been in private hands. See vol. iv. p. 382.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3499
How many ridiculous stories are there of like cuckoldings, committed by the gods against poor mortal men! And how many husbands injuriously scandaled in favour of the children! In the Mahometan religion there are Merlins enough found by the belief of the people; that is to say, children without fathers, spiritual, divinely conceived in the wombs of virgins, and carry names that signify so much in their language.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1681
You are no more to concern yourself how the world talks of you, but how you are to talk to yourself. Retire yourself into yourself, but first prepare yourself there to receive yourself: it were a folly to trust yourself in your own hands, if you cannot govern yourself. A man may miscarry alone as well as in company. Till you have rendered yourself one before whom you dare not trip, and till you have a bashfulness and respect for yourself,
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6894
Who will not say that glosses augment doubts and ignorance, since there’s no book to be found, either human or divine, which the world busies itself about, whereof the difficulties are cleared by interpretation. The hundredth commentator passes it on to the next, still more knotty and perplexed than he found it. When were we ever agreed amongst ourselves: “This book has enough; there is now no more to be said about it”?
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 249
SIRE, It is to be above the weight and crowd of your great and important affairs, to know, as you do, how to lend yourself, and attend to small matters in their turn, according to the duty of your royal dignity, which exposes you at all times to every description and degree of person and employment. Yet, that your Majesty should have deigned to consider my letter, and direct a reply to be made to it, I prefer to owe, less to your strong understanding, than to your kindness of heart.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5151
Dreadful in arms and blood, he overran and subdued a nation invincible by all others but by him alone; and yet in the heat of an encounter, could turn aside from his friend and guest. Certainly he was fit to command in war who could so rein himself with the curb of good nature, in the height and heat of his fury, a fury inflamed and foaming with blood and slaughter.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2416
All the inconveniences in the world are not considerable enough that a man should die to evade them; and, besides, there being so many, so sudden and unexpected changes in human things, it is hard rightly to judge when we are at the end of our hope:
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 698
I am one of those who are most sensible of the power of imagination: every one is jostled by it, but some are overthrown by it. It has a very piercing impression upon me; and I make it my business to avoid, wanting force to resist it. I could live by the sole help of healthful and jolly company: the very sight of another’s pain materially pains me, and I often usurp the sensations of another person. A perpetual cough in another tickles my lungs and throat.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1155
[“It profits poor and rich alike, but, neglected, equally hurts old and young.”--Horace, Ep., i. 25.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2000
Sylla and Marius in the social war, having defeated the Marsians, seeing yet a body of reserve that, prompted by despair, was coming on like enraged brutes to dash in upon them, thought it not convenient to stand their charge. Had not Monsieur de Foix’s ardour transported him so furiously to pursue the remains of the victory of Ravenna, he had not obscured it by his own death.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 400
Cleomenes was wont to say, “that what mischief soever a man could do his enemy in time of war was above justice, and nothing accountable to it in the sight of gods and men.” And so, having concluded a truce with those of Argos for seven days, the third night after he fell upon them when they were all buried in sleep, and put them to the sword, alleging that there had no nights been mentioned in the truce; but the gods punished this subtle perfidy.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 3782
There is no dispute so sharp and violent amongst the philosophers, as about the question of the sovereign good of man; whence, by the calculation of Varro, rose two hundred and eighty-eight sects. _Qui autem de summo bono dissentit, de totâ philosophies ratione disputât._ “For whoever enters into controversy concerning the supreme good, disputes upon the whole matter of philosophy.”
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2
His Essays, which are at once the most celebrated and the most permanent of his productions, form a magazine out of which such minds as those of Bacon and Shakespeare did not disdain to help themselves; and, indeed, as Hallam observes, the Frenchman’s literary importance largely results from the share which his mind had in influencing other minds, coeval and subsequent.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4344
Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit Poets Possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules Prolong his life also prolonged and augmented his pain Regret so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold Sense: no one who is not contented with his share Setting too great a value upon ourselves Setting too little a value upon others She who only refuses, because ‘tis forbidden, consents Short of the foremost, but before the last Souls that are regular and strong of themselves are rare Suicide: a morsel that is to be swallowed without chewing Take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear that worst The age we live in produces but very indifferent things The reward of a thing well done is to have done it The satiety of living, inclines a man to desire to die There is no reason that has not its contrary They do not see my heart, they see but my countenance Those who can please and hug themselves in what they do Tis far beyond not fearing death to taste and relish it To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind to’t Voice and determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance Vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on We believe we do not believe We consider our death as a very great thing We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings We have taught the ladies to blush We set too much value upon ourselves Were more ambitious of a great reputation than of a good one What a man says should be what he thinks What he did by nature and accident, he cannot do by design What is more accidental than reputation?
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7217
have you not lived?” If it be a delicious medicine, take it Intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not Intemperance is the pest of pleasure Language: obscure and unintelligible in wills and contracts Last death will kill but a half or a quarter of a man Law: breeder of altercation and division Laws keep up their credit, not for being just--but as laws Lay the fault on the voices of those who speak to me.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1627
Now, since we will attempt to live alone, and to waive all manner of conversation amongst them, let us so order it that our content may depend wholly upon ourselves; let us dissolve all obligations that ally us to others; let us obtain this from ourselves, that we may live alone in good earnest, and live at our ease too.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2182
And therefore it is that I, for my own part, retreat as much as I can towards the first and natural station, whence I so vainly attempted to advance.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2396
[“As in Mount Algidus, the sturdy oak even from the axe itself derives new vigour and life.”--Horace, Od., iv. 4, 57.]
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 7208
These transcendental humours affright me, like high and inaccessible places; and nothing is hard for me to digest in the life of Socrates but his ecstasies and communication with demons; nothing so human in Plato as that for which they say he was called divine; and of our sciences, those seem to be the most terrestrial and low that are highest mounted; and I find nothing so humble and mortal in the life of Alexander as his fancies about his immortalisation.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5064
This does not concern me; mine slip from me with as little care as they are of little value, and ‘tis the better for them. I would presently part with them for what they are worth, and neither buy nor sell them, but as they weigh. I speak on paper, as I do to the first person I meet; and that this is true, observe what follows.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6351
What I will do for the service of death is always done; I durst not so much as one day defer it; and if nothing be done, ‘tis as much as to say either that doubt hindered my choice (and sometimes ‘tis well chosen not to choose), or that I was positively resolved not to do anything at all.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 4906
I can do anything upon a sudden endeavour, but it must not continue long. Oh, what pity ‘tis I have not the faculty of that dreamer in Cicero, who dreaming he was lying with a wench, found he had discharged his stone in the sheets. My pains strangely deaden my appetite that way.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6611
my fortune will have it so. I am descended from a family that has lived without lustre or tumult, and, time out of mind, particularly ambitious of a character for probity.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 1139
She can be rich, be potent and wise, and knows how to lie upon soft perfumed beds: she loves life, beauty, glory, and health; but her proper and peculiar office is to know how to regulate the use of all these good things, and how to lose them without concern: an office much more noble than troublesome, and without which the whole course of life is unnatural, turbulent, and deformed, and there it is indeed, that men may justly represent those monsters upon rocks and precipices.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2367
Is this all thou canst do? My constancy torments thee more than thy cruelty does me. O pitiful coward, thou faintest, and I grow stronger; make me complain, make me bend, make me yield if thou canst; encourage thy guards, cheer up thy executioners; see, see they faint, and can do no more; arm them, flesh them anew, spur them up”; truly, a man must confess that there is some phrenzy, some fury, how holy soever, that at that time possesses those souls.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6720
To what end do we so arm ourselves with this harness of science? Let us look down upon the poor people that we see scattered upon the face of the earth, prone and intent upon their business, that neither know Aristotle nor Cato, example nor precept; from these nature every day extracts effects of constancy and patience, more pure and manly than those we so inquisitively study in the schools: how many do I ordinarily see who slight poverty?
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 5275
I envy those who can render themselves familiar with the meanest of their followers, and talk with them in their own way; and dislike the advice of Plato, that men should always speak in a magisterial tone to their servants, whether men or women, without being sometimes facetious and familiar; for besides the reasons I have given, ‘tis inhuman and unjust to set so great a value upon this pitiful prerogative of fortune, and the polities wherein less disparity is permitted betwixt masters and servants seem to me the most equitable.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 2447
Many enough approved this high resolution, but few imitated it; seven-and-twenty senators followed him, who, after having tried to drown the thought of this fatal determination in wine, ended the feast with the mortal mess; and embracing one another, after they had jointly deplored the misfortune of their country, some retired home to their own houses, others stayed to be burned with Vibius in his funeral pyre; and were all of them so long in dying, the vapour of the wine having prepossessed the veins, and by that means deferred the effect of poison, that some of them were within an hour of seeing the enemy inside the walls of Capua, which was taken the next morning, and of undergoing the miseries they had at so dear a rate endeavoured to avoid.
Essays of Michel de Montaigne, passage 6153
He who has the charge of my purse in his travels, has it purely and without control; he could cheat me thoroughly, if he came to reckoning; and, if he is not a devil, I oblige him to deal faithfully with me by so entire a trust: