My Blog

Category: Montaigne

  • There is profit in change

    “That is what Seneca says, which has carried me away from my subject; but there is profit in change.” II.25 “Not to counterfeit being sick” (p. 634)   (I think it’s interesting that here we see an example of Montaigne acknowledging his digression, yet also commenting on the digression itself as if examining his own…

  • We are nothing but ceremony

    “We are nothing but ceremony; ceremony carries us away, and we leave the substance of things; we hang on to the branches and abandon the trunk and body.”   II.17 “Of presumption” (581).

  • Our minute distinctions

    “… the world lets itself be so easily tricked, believing that our losses affect heaven, and that its infinity is impassioned about our minute distinctions.” II.13 “Of judging of the death of others” (p. 558)

  • I exist only within myself

    “As for me, I hold that I exist only in myself; and as for that other life of mine that lies in the knowledge of my friends, considering it naked and simply in itself, I know very well that I feel no fruit or enjoyment from it except by the vanity of a fanciful opinion.”…

  • A book consubstantial with its author

    I have no more made my book than my book has made me — a book consubstantial with its author […] For those who go over themselves only in their minds and occasionally in speech do not penetrate to essentials in their examination as does a man who makes his study, his work, and his…

  • Whatever side we lean to

    “Because in human matters, whatever side we lean to, we find many probabilities to confirm us in it…” II.17 “Of presumption” (pp. 603)

  • Born in a very depraved time

    “Misfortune has its uses. It is good to be born in a very depraved time, for by comparison with others, you are considered virtuous for a cheap price. Anyone who is only a parricide and sacrilegious in our days is a good and honorable man.” II.17 “Of presumption” (pp. 595)

  • Harmonious and uniform

    “Those who want to split up our two principal parts and sequester them from each other are wrong. On the contrary, we must couple and join them together again. We must order the soul not to draw aside and entertain itself apart, not to scorn and abandon the body (nor can it do so except…

  • To be loved

    “Even if I could make myself feared, I would much rather make myself loved.” II.8 (345)

  • The custom of fathers

    “I loathe the custom of forbidding children to use the name of father and enjoining upon them some strange address, as being more respectful; as if nature had not already provided sufficiently for our authority.” II.8 (p. 345)