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The secret counsels of princes are a troublesome burden to such
as have only to execute them.
[Fr., C'est une importune garde, du secret des princes, a qui
n'en que faire.]
Topic: Advice
Source: Essays (III, 1)
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My appetite comes to me while eating.
Topic: Appetite
Source: Essays--Of Vanity (bk. III, ch. IX)
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Like the watermen who advance forward while they look backward.
Topic: Boating
Source: Of Profit and Honesty (bk. II, ch. XXIX)
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Persons of mean understandings, not so inquisitive, nor so well
instructed, are made good Christians, and by reverence and
obedience, implicity believe, and abide by their belief.
Topic: Christianity
Source: Essays--Of Vain Subleties
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Whom conscience, ne'er asleep,
Wounds with incessant strokes, not loud, but deep.
Topic: Conscience
Source: Essays--Of Conscience (bk. II, ch. V)
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He who should teach men to die, would at the same time teach them
to live.
Topic: Example
Source: Essays (bk. I, ch. XIX)
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You have your face bare; I am all face.
[Fr., Vous avez bien la face desouverte; moi je suis tout face.]
Topic: Faces
Source: Essays (vol. I, ch XXXV), answer of a naked beggar who was asked whether he was not cold
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How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which
to-day are fables to us!
[Fr., Combien de choses nous servoient heir d'articles de foy,
qui nous sont fables aujourd'hui!]
Topic: Faith
Source: Essays (bk. I, ch. XXVI)
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Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are found and
perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing, as bears
leisurely lick their clubs into shape.
Topic: Growth
Source: Apology for Raimond Sebond (bk. II, ch. XII)
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"Oh! what a vile and abject thing is man unless he can erect
himself above humanity." Here is a bon mot and a useful desire,
but equally absurd. For to make the handful bigger than the
hand, the armful bigger then the arm, and to hope to stride
further than the stretch of our legs, is impossible and
monstrous. . . . He may lift himself if God lend him His hand of
special grace; he may lift himself . . . by means wholly
celestial. It is for our Christian religion, and not for his
Stoic virtue, to pretend to this divine and miraculous
metamorphosis.
Topic: Growth
Source: Essays (bk. II, ch. XII)
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One may be humble out of pride.
Topic: Humility
Source: Of Presumption (bk. II, ch. XVII)
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A wise man loses nothing, if he but save himself.
Topic: Loss
Source: Essays--Of Solitude
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Adrian, the Emperor, exclaimed incessantly, when dying, "That the
crowd of physicians had killed him."
Topic: Medicine
Source: Essays (bk. II, ch. XXXVII)
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How the Doctor's brow should smile,
Crown'd with wreaths of camomile.
Topic: Medicine
Source: Essays (bk. II, ch. XXXVII)
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Necessity is a violent school-mistress.
[Fr., C'est une violente maistresse d'eschole que la necessite.]
Topic: Necessity
Source: Essays (bk. I, 47)
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No one is exempt from taking nonsense; the misfortune is to do it
solemnly.
Topic: Nonsense
Source: Essays (bk. III, ch. I)
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There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more that two
hairs, or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.
- Michael Eyquen de Montaigne,
Topic: Opinion
Source: Essays--Of the Resemblance of Children to their Fathers
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Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at
the expense of life.
Topic: Opinion
Source: Of Good and Evil (ch. XL)
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The bees pillage the flowers here and there but they make honey
of them which is all their own; it is no longer thyme or
marjolaine: so the pieces borrowed from others he will transform
and mix up into a work all his own.
[Fr., Les abeilles pillotent deca dela les fleurs; mais elles en
font aprez le miel, qui est tout leur; ce n'est plus thym, ny
marjolaine: ainsi les pieces empruntees d'aultruy, il les
transformera et confondra pour en faire un ouvrage tout sien.]
Topic: Plagiarism
Source: Essays (bk. I, ch. XXV)
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Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one,
disguising and altering it for some new service.
Topic: Plagiarism
Source: Essays--Of Physiognomy
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What's done can't be undone.
[Fr., Ce qui est faicr ne se peult desfaire.]
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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And neglected his task for the flowers on the way.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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Blest tears of soul-felt penitence!
In whose benign, redeeming flow
Is felt the first, the only sense
Of guiltless joy that guilt can know.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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Bliss itself is not worth having,
If we're by compulsion blest.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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Light may come where all looks darkest,
Hope hath life, when life seems o'er.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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Oh, sweet youth, how soon it fades!
Sweet joys of youth, how fleeting!
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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Round, round, while thus we go round,
The best thing a man can do,
Is to make it at least, a merry-go-round,
By--sending the wine round too.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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So closely our whims on our miseries tread,
That the laugh is awak'd ere the tear can be dried.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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Some flowers of Eden ye yet inherit,
But the trail of the serpent is over them all.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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The pain
Remembrance gives, when the fix'd dart
Is stirred thus in the wound again.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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Then fill the bowl--way with gloom!
Our joys shall always last;
For Hope shall brighten days to come,
And Mem'ry gild the past.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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Then let me quaff the foamy tide,
And through the dance meandering glide.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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Time flies, as he flies, adds increase to her truth,
And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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To-night, at least, to-night be gay,
Whate'er to-morrow brings.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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While tears that from repentance flow,
In bright exhalement reach the skies.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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Whose wit in the combat as gentle as bright
Ne'er carried a heartstain away on its blade.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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Wouldst thou, or thou,
Forego what's now,
For all that hope may say?
No--joy's reply,
From every eye,
Is, "Live we while we may."
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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You may break, you may shatter the vase, as you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Essays (III)
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How many worthy men have we seen survive their own reputations!
Topic: Reputation
Source: Essays--Of Glory
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'Tis so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so.
- Michael Eyquen de Montaigne,
Topic: Royalty
Source: Essays--Of the Inconveniences of Greatness
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When we see a man with bad shoes, we say it is no wonder, if he
is a shoemaker.
[Fr., Quand nous veoyons un homme mal chausse, nous disons que ce
n'est pas merveille, s'il est chausstier.]
Topic: Shoemaking
Source: Essays (bk. I, ch. XXIV)
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To each foot its own shoe.
[Fr., A chaque pied son soulier.]
Topic: Shoemaking
Source: Essays (bk. III, ch. XIII)
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There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
Topic: Victory
Source: Of Cannibals (ch. XXX)
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Every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the
place where he chanced to be.
Topic: Worship
Source: Apology for Raimond Sebond, quoting Apollo
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