My Blog

Category: Montaigne

  • An extreme disparity between them

    “…Our practice is so blind that we make little or no account of it; whereas if we consider a peasant and a king, a nobleman and a plebeian, a magistrate and a private citizen, a rich man and a pauper, there immediately appears to our eyes an extreme disparity between them, though they are different,…

  • The impact of grief

    “In truth, the impact of grief, to be extreme, must stun the whole soul and impede its freedom of action; as it happens to us, at the hot alarm of some very bad news, to feel ourselves caught, benumbed, and as it were paralyzed from any movements, so that the soul, relaxing afterwards into tears…

  • Life is neither good nor evil

    “Life is neither good nor evil in itself: it is the scene of good and evil according as you give them room.” I.20 “That to philosophize is to learn to die” (p. 78)

  • On being naturally inclined to society

    “There is nothing to which nature seems to have inclined us more than to society.” I.28 “Of friendship” (p.165) [People are naturally drawn to and in need of connection with other people.]

  • Embracing virtue with too sharp a desire

    “We can grasp virtue in such a way that it will become vicious, if we embrace it with too sharp and violent a desire.” I.30 “Of moderation” (p. 177)

  • The limits of possibility

    “How many things of slight probability there are, testified to by trustworthy people, which, if we cannot be convinced of them, we should at least leave in suspense! For to condemn them as impossible is to pretend, with rash presumption, to know the limits of possibility.” 1.27 “It is a folly to measure the true…

  • What matters is how we see it

    “To judge of great and lofty things we need a soul of the same caliber; otherwise we attribute to them the vice that is our own. A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see the thing, but how we see it.” I. 14 “That the taste of…

  • Judge by reason, not popular opinion

    “Thus we should beware of clinging to vulgar opinions, and judge things by reason’s way, not by popular say.” I.31 “Of cannibals” (p.182)

  • Souls stirred and set in motion

    “So it seems that the soul, once stirred and set in motion, is lost in itself unless we give it something to grasp; and we must always give it an object to aim and act on…. the loving part that is in us, lacking a legitimate object, rather than remain idle, thus forges itself a…

  • Vice of special knowledge

    “… for a man may have some special knowledge and experience of the nature of a river or a fountain, who in other matters knows only what everybody knows. However, to circulate this little scrap of knowledge, he will undertake to write the whole of physics. From this vice spring many great abuses.” I.31 “Of…