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The Essays of Montaigne [588]

By Root 24119 0
know how to choose

Books have not so much served me for instruction as exercise

Books I read over again, still smile upon me with fresh novelty

Books of things that were never either studied or understood

Both himself and his posterity declared ignoble, taxable

Both kings and philosophers go to stool

Burnt and roasted for opinions taken upon trust from others

Business to-morrow

But ill proves the honour and beauty of an action by its utility

But it is not enough that our education does not spoil us

By resenting the lie we acquit ourselves of the fault

By suspecting them, have given them a title to do ill

"By the gods," said he, "if I was not angry, I would execute you"

By the misery of this life, aiming at bliss in another

Caesar: he would be thought an excellent engineer to boot

Caesar's choice of death: "the shortest"

Can neither keep nor enjoy anything with a good grace

Cannot stand the liberty of a friend's advice

Carnal appetites only supported by use and exercise

Cato said: So many servants, so many enemies

Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful

Certain other things that people hide only to show them

Change is to be feared

Change of fashions

Change only gives form to injustice and tyranny

Cherish themselves most where they are most wrong

Chess: this idle and childish game

Chiefly knew himself to be mortal by this act

Childish ignorance of many very ordinary things

Children are amused with toys and men with words

Cicero: on fame

Civil innocence is measured according to times and places

Cleave to the side that stood most in need of her

cloak on one shoulder, my cap on one side, a stocking disordered

College: a real house of correction of imprisoned youth

Coming out of the same hole

Commit themselves to the common fortune

Common consolation, discourages and softens me

Common friendships will admit of division

Conclude the depth of my sense by its obscurity

Concluding no beauty can be greater than what they see

Condemn all violence in the education of a tender soul

Condemn the opposite affirmation equally

Condemnations have I seen more criminal than the crimes

Condemning wine, because some people will be drunk

Confession enervates reproach and disarms slander

Confidence in another man's virtue

Conscience makes us betray, accuse, and fight against ourselves

Conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature

Consent, and complacency in giving a man's self up to melancholy

Consoles himself upon the utility and eternity of his writings

Content: more easily found in want than in abundance

Counterfeit condolings of pretenders

Courageous in death, not because his soul is immortal—Socrates

Courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study

Crafty humility that springs from presumption

Crates did worse, who threw himself into the liberty of poverty

Cruelty is the very extreme of all vices

Culling out of several books the sentences that best please me

Curiosity and of that eager passion for news

Curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge

"Custom," replied Plato, "is no little thing"

Customs and laws make justice

Dangerous man you have deprived of all means to escape

Dangers do, in truth, little or nothing hasten our end

Dearness is a good sauce to meat

Death can, whenever we please, cut short inconveniences

Death conduces more to birth and augmentation than to loss

Death discharges us of all our obligations

Death has us every moment by the throat

Death is a part of you

Death is terrible to Cicero, coveted by Cato

Death of old age the most rare and very seldom seen

Deceit maintains and supplies most men's employment

Decree that says, "The court understands nothing of the matter"

Defence allures attempt, and defiance provokes an enemy

Defend most the defects with which we are most tainted

Defer my revenge to another and better time

Deformity of the first cruelty makes me abhor all imitation

Delivered into our own custody the keys of life

Denying all solicitation, both of hand and mind

Depend as much upon

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