My Blog

Category: Montaigne

  • As deep as I know how

    “For I do not see the whole of anything; nor do those who promise to show it to us. Of a hundred members and faces that each thing has, I take one, sometimes only to lick it, sometimes to brush the surface, sometimes to pinch it to the bone. I give it a stab, not…

  • Our good and our ill depend on ourselves alone

    “Our good and our ill depend on ourselves alone. Let us offer our offerings and vows to ourselves, not to Fortune; she has no power over our character; on the contrary, it drags her in its train and mold her in its own form.” I.50 “Of Democritus and Heraclitus” (p. 267)

  • Secrets of the divine

    “… a whole pile of people… clai[m] to find the causes of every incident and to see in the secrets of the divine will the incomprehensible motives of his works; and although the variety and continual discordance of events tosses them from corner to corner and from east to west, yet they do not stop…

  • Another type of good believers

    “Of simple souls, less curious and less learned, are made good Christians, who, through reverence and obedience, believe simply and live under the laws. In the middle range of mental vigor and ability, error in opinion is engendered; those in this range follow the first plausible meaning, and have some claim to regard our sticking…

  • Neither good nor useful

    “It is a marvelous testimony of the weakness of our judgment that it recommends things for their rarity or novelty, or even for their difficulty, even if they are neither good nor useful.” I.54 “Of vain subtleties” (p. 274)

  • A kind of mania

    “The present fashion in dress makes them promptly condemn the old, with such great positiveness and such universal agreement that you would think it was a kind of mania that thus turns their understanding upside down…it is inevitable that the despised fashions very often return into favor, and these very ones soon after fall back…

  • The sole and unique protector

    “He is indeed our sole and unique protector, and can do anything to help us; but although he deigns to honor us with that sweet fatherly relationship, nevertheless, he is as just as he is good and as he is powerful. But he exercises his justice much more often than his power, and favors us…

  • Reflecting upon the continual variation of human things

    “I want to pile up here some ancient fashions that I have in my memory, some like ours, others different, to the end that we may strengthen and enlighten our judgment by reflecting upon this continual variation of human things.” I.49 “Of ancient customs” (p.262)

  • Nothing is so firmly believed

    “Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known, nor are any people so confident as those who tell us fables, such as alchemists, prognosticators, astrologers, palmists, doctors…” I.32 “We should meddle soberly with judging divine ordinances” (p. 194) [Add to the list nowadays.]

  • Satiety makes it boring

    “Do we think that choirboys take great pleasure in music? Not so; satiety makes it boring to them. Feasts, dances, masquerades, tourneys, delight those who do not see them often and who have looked forward to seeing them; but to anyone who makes them an ordinary pastime, the taste of them becomes insipid and unpleasant.…