Essays of Michel de Montaigne - 107

If I stand in need of anger and inflammation, I borrow it
If it be a delicious medicine, take it
If it be the writer’s wit or borrowed from some other
If nature do not help a little, it is very hard
If they can only be kind to us out of pity
If they chop upon one truth, that carries a mighty report
If they hear no noise, they think men sleep
If to philosophise be, as ‘tis defined, to doubt
Ignorance does not offend me, but the foppery of it
Impotencies that so unseasonably surprise the lover
Ill luck is good for something
Imagne the mighty will not abase themselves so much as to live
Imitating other men’s natures, thou layest aside thy own
Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation
Impose them upon me as infallible
Impostures: very strangeness lends them credit
Improperly we call this voluntary dissolution, despair
Impunity pass with us for justice
In everything else a man may keep some decorum
In ordinary friendships I am somewhat cold and shy
In solitude, be company for thyself--Tibullus
In sorrow there is some mixture of pleasure
In the meantime, their halves were begging at their doors
In this last scene of death, there is no more counterfeiting
In those days, the tailor took measure of it
In war not to drive an enemy to despair
Inclination to love one another at the first sight
Inclination to variety and novelty common to us both
Incline the history to their own fancy
Inconsiderate excuses are a kind of self-accusation
Inconveniences that moderation brings (in civil war)
Indiscreet desire of a present cure, that so blind us
Indocile liberty of this member
Inquisitive after everything
Insensible of the stroke when our youth dies in us
Insert whole sections and pages out of ancient authors
Intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not
Intemperance is the pest of pleasure
Intended to get a new husband than to lament the old
Interdict all gifts betwixt man and wife
Interdiction incites, and who are more eager, being forbidden
It (my books) may know many things that are gone from me
It happens, as with cages, the birds without despair to get in
It is better to die than to live miserable
It is no hard matter to get children
It is not a book to read, ‘tis a book to study and learn
It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part
It’s madness to nourish infirmity
Jealousy: no remedy but flight or patience
Judge by justice, and choose men by reason
Judge by the eye of reason, and not from common report
Judgment of duty principally lies in the will
Judgment of great things is many times formed from lesser thing
Justice als takes cognisance of those who glean after the reaper
Killing is good to frustrate an offence to come, not to revenge
Knock you down with the authority of their experience
Knot is not so sure that a man may not half suspect it will slip
Knowledge and truth may be in us without judgment
Knowledge is not so absolutely necessary as judgment
Knowledge of others, wherein the honour consists
Known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new
Ladies are no sooner ours, than we are no more theirs
Language: obscure and unintelligible in wills and contracts
Lascivious poet: Homer
Last death will kill but a half or a quarter of a man
Law: breeder of altercation and division
Laws (of Plato on travel), which forbids it after threescore
Laws cannot subsist without mixture of injustice
Laws do what they can, when they cannot do what they would
Laws keep up their credit, not for being just--but as laws
Lay the fault on the voices of those who speak to me
Laying themselves low to avoid the danger of falling
Learn my own debility and the treachery of my understanding
Learn the theory from those who best know the practice
Learn what it is right to wish
Learning improves fortunes enough, but not minds
Least end of a hair will serve to draw them into my discourse
Least touch or prick of a pencil in comparison of the whole
Leave society when we can no longer add anything to it
Leaving nothing unsaid, how home and bitter soever
Led by the ears by this charming harmony of words
Lend himself to others, and only give himself to himself
Lessen the just value of things that I possess
“Let a man take which course he will,” said he; “he will repent”
Let him be as wise as he will, after all he is but a man
Let him be satisfied with correcting himself
Let him examine every man’s talent
Let it alone a little
Let it be permitted to the timid to hope
Let not us seek illusions from without and unknown
Let us not be ashamed to speak what we are not ashamed to think
Let us not seek our disease out of ourselves; ‘tis in us
Liberality at the expense of others
Liberty and laziness, the qualities most predominant in me
Liberty of poverty
Liberty to lean, but not to lay our whole weight upon others
Library: Tis there that I am in my kingdom
License of judgments is a great disturbance to great affairs
Life of Caesar has no greater example for us than our own
Life should be cut off in the sound and living part
Light griefs can speak: deep sorrows are dumb
Light prognostics they give of themselves in their tender years
Little affairs most disturb us
Little knacks and frivolous subtleties
Little learning is needed to form a sound mind--Seneca
Little less trouble in governing a private family than a kingdom
Live a quite contrary sort of life to what they prescribe others
Live at the expense of life itself
Live, not so long as they please, but as long as they ought
Living is slavery if the liberty of dying be wanting
Living well, which of all arts is the greatest
Llaying the fault upon the patient, by such frivolous reasons
Lodge nothing in his fancy upon simple authority and upon trust
Long a voyage I should at last run myself into some disadvantage
Long sittings at table both trouble me and do me harm
Long toleration begets habit; habit, consent and imitation
Look on death not only without astonishment but without care
Look upon themselves as a third person only, a stranger
Look, you who think the gods have no care of human things
Lose what I have a particular care to lock safe up
Loses more by defending his vineyard than if he gave it up
Love is the appetite of generation by the mediation of beauty
Love shamefully and dishonestly cured by marriage
Love them the less for our own faults
Love we bear to our wives is very lawful
Love, full, lively, and sharp; a pleasure inflamed by difficulty
Loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men
Lower himself to the meanness of defending his innocence
Made all medicinal conclusions largely give way to my pleasure
Making their advantage of our folly, for most men do the same
Malice must be employed to correct this arrogant ignorance
Malice sucks up the greatest part of its own venom
Malicious kind of justice
Man (must) know that he is his own
Man after who held out his pulse to a physician was a fool
Man can never be wise but by his own wisdom
Man may say too much even upon the best subjects
Man may with less trouble adapt himself to entire abstinence
Man must approach his wife with prudence and temperance
Man must have a care not to do his master so great service
Man must learn that he is nothing but a fool
Man runs a very great hazard in their hands (of physicians)
Mark of singular good nature to preserve old age
Marriage
Marriage rejects the company and conditions of love
Melancholy: Are there not some constitutions that feed upon it?
Memories are full enough, but the judgment totally void
Men approve of things for their being rare and new
Men are not always to rely upon the personal confessions
Men as often commend as undervalue me beyond reason
Men make them (the rules) without their (women’s) help
Men must embark, and not deliberate, upon high enterprises
Men should furnish themselves with such things as would float
Mercenaries who would receive any (pay)
Merciful to the man, but not to his wickedness--Aristotle
Methinks I am no more than half of myself
Methinks I promise it, if I but say it
Miracle: everything our reason cannot comprehend
Miracles and strange events have concealed themselves from me
Miracles appear to be so, according to our ignorance of nature
Miserable kind of remedy, to owe one’s health to one’s disease!
Miserable, who has not at home where to be by himself
Misfortunes that only hurt us by being known
Mix railing, indiscretion, and fury in his disputations
Moderation is a virtue that gives more work than suffering
Modesty is a foolish virtue in an indigent person (Homer)
More ado to interpret interpretations
More books upon books than upon any other subject
More brave men been lost in occasions of little moment
More solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak
More supportable to be always alone than never to be so
More valued a victory obtained by counsel than by force
Morosity and melancholic humour of a sour ill-natured pedant
Most cruel people, and upon frivolous occasions, apt to cry
Most men are rich in borrowed sufficiency
Most men do not so much believe as they acquiesce and permit
Most of my actions are guided by example, not by choice
Mothers are too tender
Motive to some vicious occasion or some prospect of profit
Much better to offend him once than myself every day
Much difference betwixt us and ourselves
Must for the most part entertain ourselves with ourselves
Must of necessity walk in the steps of another
My affection alters, my judgment does not
My books: from me hold that which I have not retained
My dog unseasonably importunes me to play
My fancy does not go by itself, as when my legs move it
My humour is no friend to tumult
My humour is unfit either to speak or write for beginners
My innocence is a simple one; little vigour and no art
My mind is easily composed at distance
My reason is not obliged to bow and bend; my knees are
My thoughts sleep if I sit still
My words does but injure the love I have conceived within
Natural death the most rare and very seldom seen
Nature of judgment to have it more deliberate and more slow
Nature of wit is to have its operation prompt and sudden
Nature, who left us in such a state of imperfection
Nearest to the opinions of those with whom they have to do
Negligent garb, which is yet observable amongst the young men
Neither be a burden to myself nor to any other
Neither continency nor virtue where there are no opposing desire
Neither men nor their lives are measured by the ell
Neither the courage to die nor the heart to live
Never any man knew so much, and spake so little
Never did two men make the same judgment of the same thing
Never observed any great stability in my soul to resist passions
Never oppose them either by word or sign, how false or absurd
Never represent things to you simply as they are
Never spoke of my money, but falsely, as others do
New World: sold it opinions and our arts at a very dear rate
Nnone that less keep their promise(than physicians)
No alcohol the night on which a man intends to get children
No beast in the world so much to be feared by man as man
No danger with them, though they may do us no good
No doing more difficult than that not doing, nor more active
No effect of virtue, to have stronger arms and legs
No evil is honourable; but death is honourable
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness
No great choice betwixt not knowing to speak anything but ill--
No man continues ill long but by his own fault
No man is free from speaking foolish things
No man more certain than another of to-morrow--Seneca
No necessity upon a man to live in necessity
No one can be called happy till he is dead and buried
No other foundation or support than public abuse
No passion so contagious as that of fear
No physic that has not something hurtful in it
No use to this age, I throw myself back upon that other
No way found to tranquillity that is good in common
Noble and rich, where examples of virtue are rarely lodged
Nobody prognosticated that I should be wicked, but only useless
Noise of arms deafened the voice of laws
None of the sex, let her be as ugly as the devil thinks lovable
Nor get children but before I sleep, nor get them standing
Nor have other tie upon one another, but by our word
Nosegay of foreign flowers, having furnished nothing of my own
Not a victory that puts not an end to the war
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself
Not believe from one, I should not believe from a hundred
Not certain to live till I came home
Not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark
Not conclude too much upon your mistress’s inviolable chastity
Not for any profit, but for the honour of honesty itself
Not having been able to pronounce one syllable, which is No!
Not in a condition to lend must forbid himself to borrow
Not melancholic, but meditative
Not to instruct but to be instructed
Not want, but rather abundance, that creates avarice
Nothing can be a grievance that is but once
Nothing falls where all falls
Nothing is more confident than a bad poet
Nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know
Nothing is so supple and erratic as our understanding
Nothing noble can be performed without danger
Nothing presses so hard upon a state as innovation
Nothing so grossly, nor so ordinarily faulty, as the laws
Nothing tempts my tears but tears
Nothing that so poisons as flattery
Number of fools so much exceeds the wise
O Athenians, what this man says, I will do
O my friends, there is no friend: Aristotle
O wretched men, whose pleasures are a crime
O, the furious advantage of opportunity!
Obedience is never pure nor calm in him who reasons and disputes
Obliged to his age for having weaned him from pleasure
Observed the laws of marriage, than I either promised or expect
Obstinacy and contention are common qualities
Obstinacy is the sister of constancy
Obstinancy and heat in argument are the surest proofs of folly
Obstinate in growing worse
Occasion to La Boetie to write his “Voluntary Servitude”
Occasions of the least lustre are ever the most dangerous
Occupy our thoughts about the general, and about universal cause
Of the fleeting years each steals something from me
Office of magnanimity openly and professedly to love and hate
Oftentimes agitated with divers passions
Old age: applaud the past and condemn the present
Old men who retain the memory of things past
Omit, as incredible, such things as they do not understand
On all occasions to contradict and oppose
One door into life, but a hundred thousand ways out
One may be humble out of pride
One may more boldly dare what nobody thinks you dare
One may regret better times, but cannot fly from the present
One must first know what is his own and what is not
Only desire to become more wise, not more learned or eloquent
Only secure harbour from the storms and tempests of life
Only set the humours they would purge more violently in work
Open speaking draws out discoveries, like wine and love
Opinions they have of things and not by the things themselves
Opinions we have are taken on authority and trust
Opposition and contradiction entertain and nourish them
Option now of continuing in life or of completing the voyage
Order a purge for your brain, it will there be much better
Order it so that your virtue may conquer your misfortune
Ordinances it (Medicine) foists upon us
Ordinary friendships, you are to walk with bridle in your hand
Ordinary method of cure is carried on at the expense of life
Others adore all of their own side
Ought not only to have his hands, but his eyes, too, chaste
Ought not to expect much either from his vigilance or power
Ought to withdraw and retire his soul from the crowd
Our extremest pleasure has some sort of groaning
Our fancy does what it will, both with itself and us
Our judgments are yet sick
Our justice presents to us but one hand
Our knowledge, which is a wretched foundation
Our qualities have no title but in comparison
Our will is more obstinate by being opposed
Over-circumspect and wary prudence is a mortal enemy
Overvalue things, because they are foreign, absent
Owe ourselves chiefly and mostly to ourselves
Passion has a more absolute command over us than reason
Passion has already confounded his judgment
Passion of dandling and caressing infants scarcely born
Pay very strict usury who did not in due time pay the principal
People are willing to be gulled in what they desire
People conceiving they have right and title to be judges
Perfect friendship I speak of is indivisible
Perfect men as they are, they are yet simply men
Perfection: but I will not buy it so dear as it costs
Perpetual scolding of his wife (of Socrates)
Petulant madness contends with itself
Philopoemen: paying the penalty of my ugliness
Philosophy
Philosophy has discourses proper for childhood
Philosophy is nothing but to prepare one’s self to die
Philosophy is that which instructs us to live
Philosophy looked upon as a vain and fantastic name
Phusicians cure by by misery and pain
Physic
Physician worse physicked
Physician: pass through all the diseases he pretends to cure
Physician’s “help”, which is very often an obstacle
Physicians are not content to deal only with the sick
Physicians fear men should at any time escape their authority
Physicians were the only men who might lie at pleasure
Physicians: earth covers their failures
Pinch the secret strings of our imperfections
Pitiful ways and expedients to the jugglers of the law
Pity is reputed a vice amongst the Stoics
Plato angry at excess of sleeping than at excess of drinking
Plato forbids children wine till eighteen years of age
Plato said of the Egyptians, that they were all physicians
Plato says, that the gods made man for their sport
Plato will have nobody marry before thirty
Plato: lawyers and physicians are bad institutions of a country
Plays of children are not performed in play
Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit
Pleasure of telling (a pleasure little inferior to that of doing
Possession begets a contempt of what it holds and rules
Practical Jokes: Tis unhandsome to fight in play
Preachers very often work more upon their auditory than reasons
Preface to bribe the benevolence of the courteous reader
Prefer in bed, beauty before goodness
Preferring the universal and common tie to all national ties
Premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty
Prepare ourselves against the preparations of death
Present Him such words as the memory suggests to the tongue
Present himself with a halter about his neck to the people
Presumptive knowledge by silence
Pretending to find out the cause of every accident
Priest shall on the wedding-day open the way to the bride
Proceed so long as there shall be ink and paper in the world
Profession of knowledge and their immeasurable self-conceit
Profit made only at the expense of another
Prolong his life also prolonged and augmented his pain
Prolong your misery an hour or two
Prudent and just man may be intemperate and inconsistent
Prudent man, when I imagine him in this posture
Psalms of King David: promiscuous, indiscreet
Public weal requires that men should betray, and lie
Puerile simplicities of our children
Pure cowardice that makes our belief so pliable
Put us into a way of extending and diversifying difficulties
Pyrrho’s hog
Quiet repose and a profound sleep without dreams
Rage compelled to excuse itself by a pretence of good-will
Rage it puts them to oppose silence and coldness to their fury
Rash and incessant scolding runs into custom
Rather be a less while old than be old before I am really so
Rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory
Rather prating of another man’s province than his own
Reading those books, converse with the great and heroic souls
Reasons often anticipate the effect
Recommendation of strangeness, rarity, and dear purchase
Refusin to justify, excuse, or explain myself
Regret so honourable a post, where necessity must make them bold
Remotest witness knows more about it than those who were nearest
Represented her a little too passionate for a married Venus
Reputation: most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes
Repute for value in them, not what they bring to us
Reserve a backshop, wholly our own and entirely free
Resolved to bring nothing to it but expectation and patience
Rest satisfied, without desire of prolongation of life or name
Restoring what has been lent us, wit usury and accession
Revenge more wounds our children than it heals us
Revenge, which afterwards produces a series of new cruelties
Reverse of truth has a hundred thousand forms
Rhetoric: an art to flatter and deceive
Rhetoric: to govern a disorderly and tumultuous rabble
Richer than we think we are; but we are taught to borrow
Ridiculous desire of riches when we have lost the use of them
Right of command appertains to the beautiful-Aristotle
Rome was more valiant before she grew so learned
Rowers who so advance backward
Rude and quarrelsome flatly to deny a stated fact
Same folly as to be sorry we were not alive a hundred years ago
Satisfaction of mind to have only one path to walk in
Satisfied and pleased with and in themselves
Say of some compositions that they stink of oil and of the lamp
Scratching is one of nature’s sweetest gratifications
Season a denial with asperity, suspense, or favour
See how flexible our reason is
Seek the quadrature of the circle, even when on their wives
Seeming anger, for the better governing of my house
Send us to the better air of some other country
Sense: no one who is not contented with his share
Setting too great a value upon ourselves
Setting too little a value upon others
Settled my thoughts to live upon less than I have
Sex: To put fools and wise men, beasts and us, on a level
Shake the truth of our Church by the vices of her ministers
Shame for me to serve, being so near the reach of liberty
Sharps and sweets of marriage, are kept secret by the wise
She who only refuses, because ‘tis forbidden, consents
Shelter my own weakness under these great reputations
Short of the foremost, but before the last
Should first have mended their breeches
Silence, therefore, and modesty are very advantageous qualities
Silent mien procured the credit of prudence and capacity
Sins that make the least noise are the worst
Sitting betwixt two stools
Slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk
Sleep suffocates and suppresses the faculties of the soul
Smile upon us whilst we are alive
So austere and very wise countenance and carriage--of physicians
So many trillions of men, buried before us
So much are men enslaved to their miserable being
So that I could have said no worse behind their backs
So weak and languishing, as not to have even wishing left to him
Socrates kept a confounded scolding wife
Socrates: According to what a man can
Soft, easy, and wholesome pillow is ignorance and incuriosity
Solon said that eating was physic against the malady hunger
Solon, that none can be said to be happy until he is dead
some people rude, by being overcivil in their courtesy
Some wives covetous indeed, but very few that are good managers
Sometimes the body first submits to age, sometimes the mind
Souls that are regular and strong of themselves are rare
Sparing and an husband of his knowledge
Speak less of one’s self than what one really is is folly
Spectators can claim no interest in the honour and pleasure
Stilpo lost wife, children, and goods
Stilpo: thank God, nothing was lost of his
Strangely suspect all this merchandise: medical care
Strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment
Studied, when young, for ostentation, now for diversion
Studies, to teach me to do, and not to write
Study makes me sensible how much I have to learn
Study of books is a languishing and feeble motion
Study to declare what is justice, but never took care to do it
Stumble upon a truth amongst an infinite number of lies
Stupidity and facility natural to the common people
Style wherewith men establish religions and laws
Subdividing these subtilties we teach men to increase their doub
Such a recipe as they will not take themselves
Suffer my judgment to be made captive by prepossession
Suffer those inconveniences which are not possibly to be avoided
Sufficiently covered by their virtue without any other robe
Suicide: a morsel that is to be swallowed without chewing
Superstitiously to seek out in the stars the ancient causes
Swell and puff up their souls, and their natural way of speaking
Swim in troubled waters without fishing in them
Take a pleasure in being uninterested in other men’s affairs
Take all things at the worst, and to resolve to bear that worst
Take my last leave of every place I depart from
Take two sorts of grist out of the same sack
Taking things upon trust from vulgar opinion
Taught to be afraid of professing our ignorance
Taught to consider sleep as a resemblance of death
Tearing a body limb from limb by racks and torments
Testimony of the truth from minds prepossessed by custom?
That he could neither read nor swim
That looks a nice well-made shoe to you
That we may live, we cease to live
That which cowardice itself has chosen for its refuge
The action is commendable, not the man
The age we live in produces but very indifferent things
The authors, with whom I converse
The Babylonians carried their sick into the public square
The best authors too much humble and discourage me
The Bible: the wicked and ignorant grow worse by it
The cause of truth ought to be the common cause
The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine