My Blog

Category: Montaigne

  • Better pleased with other’s things

    “Among human characteristics, this one is rather common: to be better pleased with other people’s things than with our own, and to love movement and change.” III.9 “Of vanity” (p. 878)

  • Pleasure and communication

    “No pleasure has any savor for me without communication. Not even a merry thought comes to my mind without my being vexed at having produced it alone without anyone to offer it to.”   III. 9 “Of vanity” (p. 917)

  • Nothing costs me dear

    Nothing costs me dear except care and trouble, and I seek only to grow indifferent and relaxed. III. 9 “Of vanity” (p. 884).

  • Like a duck

    “I love rain and mud like a duck.” III.9 “Of vanity” (p.904)

  • Myself now and myself a while ago

    “Myself now and myself a while ago are indeed two; but when better, I simply cannot say. It would be fine to be old if we traveled only toward improvement. It is a drunkard’s motion, staggering, dizzy, wobbling, or that of reeds that the wind stirs haphazardly as it pleases.” III.9 “Of vanity” (p.895)

  • For the benefit of the inferior

    “The authority to judge is not given for the sake of the judge, but for the sake of the person judged. A superior is never appointed for his own benefit, but for the benefit of the inferior, and a doctor for the sick, not for himself. All authority, like all art, has its end outside…

  • Fear from want of judgment

    “Fear sometimes arises from want of judgment as well as from want of courage.”   III. 6 “Coaches” (p. 832).

  • An open way of speaking

    “An open way of speaking opens up another man’s speech and draws it out, as do wine and love” III.1 “Of the useful and the honorable” (p. 730)

  • The most learned man alive

      “At least I have one thing according to the rules: that no man ever treated a subject he knew and understood better than I do the subject I have undertaken; and that in this I am the most learned man alive. Secondly, that no man ever penetrated more deeply into his material, or plucked…

  • The empty husks that strike us

    “It takes little to divert and distract us, for it takes little to hold us. We scarcely look at things in gross and alone; it is the minute and superficial circumstances and notions that strike us, and the empty husks that peel off from the things…” III.4 “Of diversion” (p. 770)