Essays — Michel de Montaigne

Essays

Michel de Montaigne · License: Public domain · Source

• 'Tis true that I look upon his obstinate poverty, as it is set out by his best friends, as a little too scrupulous and nice; and this is the only feature, though high in itself and well worthy of admiration, that I find so rugged as not to desire to imitate, to the degree it was in him. CHAPTER XXXVI · ¶3608
• For a man that was no saint, but, as we say, a gentleman, of civilian and ordinary manners, and of a moderate ambition, the richest life that I know, and full of the richest and most to be desired parts, all things considered, is, in my opinion, that of Alcibiades. CHAPTER XXXVI · ¶3610
• "Debilem facito manu, Debilem pede, coxa, Lubricos quate dentes; Vita dum superest, bene est." CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3614
• "Summum nec metuas diem, nec optes:" CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3618
• they are two passions to be feared; but the one has its remedy much nearer at hand than the other. CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3620
• "Pugiles etiam, quum feriunt, in jactandis caestibus ingemiscunt, quia profundenda voce omne corpus intenditur, venitque plaga vehementior." CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3622
• We have enough to do to deal with the disease, without troubling ourselves with these superfluous rules. CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3624
• "Ejulatu, questu, gemitu, fremitibus Resonando, multum flebiles voces refert:" CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3626
• "Laborum, Nulla mihi nova nunc facies inopinave surgit; Omnia praecepi, atque animo mecum ante peregi." CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3629
• "Rhedarum transitus arcto Vicorum inflexu:" CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3642
• "Nam Pater omnipotens, aliquem indignatus ab umbris Mortalem infernis ad lumina surgere vitae, Ipse repertorem medicinae talis, et artis Fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas;" CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3647
• and his followers be pardoned, who send so many souls from life to death? A physician, boasting to Nicocles that his art was of great authority: "It is so, indeed," said Nicocles, "that can with impunity kill so many people." CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3649
• "Terrigenam, herbigradam, domiportam, sanguine cassam." CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3651
• The poets put what they would say with greater emphasis and grace; witness these two epigrams: CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3664
• "Alcon hesterno signum Jovis attigit: ille, Quamvis marmoreus, vim patitur medici. Ecce hodie, jussus transferri ex aeede vetusta, Effertur, quamvis sit Deus atque lapis." CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3665
• "Lotus nobiscum est, hilaris coenavit; et idem Inventus mane est mortuus Andragoras. Tam subitae mortis causam, Faustine, requiris? In somnis medicum viderat Hermocratem:" CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3668
• upon which I will relate two stories. CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3670
• I cannot take my hand from the paper before I have added a word concerning the assurance they give us of the certainty of their drugs, from the experiments they have made. CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3675
• --[Marguerite de Grammont, widow of Jean de Durfort, Seigneur de Duras, who was killed near Leghorn, leaving no posterity. Montaigne seems to have been on terms of considerable intimacy with her, and to have tendered her some very wholesome and frank advice in regard to her relations with Henry IV.]-- CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3678
• Edited by William Carew Hazlitt CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3688
• I. Of Profit and Honesty. II. Of Repentance. III. Of Three Commerces. IV. Of Diversion. CHAPTER XXXVII · ¶3691
• No man is free from speaking foolish things; but the worst on't is, when a man labours to play the fool: CHAPTER I · ¶3694
• "Nae iste magno conatu magnas nugas dixerit." CHAPTER I · ¶3695
• "Suave mari magno, turbantibus aequora ventis, E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem:" CHAPTER I · ¶3701
• "Utatur motu animi, qui uti ratione non potest." CHAPTER I · ¶3707
• "Ea non media, sed nulla via est, velut eventum exspectantium, quo fortunae consilia sua applicent." CHAPTER I · ¶3710
• "Id maxime quemque decet, quod est cujusque suum maxime." CHAPTER I · ¶3720
• I will not deprive deceit of its due; that were but ill to understand the world: I know it has often been of great use, and that it maintains and supplies most men's employment. There are vices that are lawful, as there are many actions, either good or excusable, that are not lawful in themselves. CHAPTER I · ¶3722
• The justice which in itself is natural and universal is otherwise and more nobly ordered than that other justice which is special, national, and constrained to the ends of government, CHAPTER I · ¶3723
• "Veri juris germanaeque justitiae solidam et expressam effigiem nullam tenemus; umbra et imaginibus utimur;" CHAPTER I · ¶3724
• "Ex senatus consultis plebisquescitis scelera exercentur." CHAPTER I · ¶3727

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