My Blog

Tag: reflection

  • 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…

  • 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)

  • 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…

  • We are all patchwork

    “We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game. And there is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.” II.1 “Of the inconsistency of our actions” (p. 296)  

  • All contradictions may be found in me

    “anyone who observes carefully can hardly find himself twice in the same state. … If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways. All contradictions may be found in me by some twist and in some fashion. Bashful, insolent; chaste, lascivious; talkative, taciturn; tough, delicate; clever,…

  • 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…

  • Art Should Not Gain the Pre-Eminence of Mother Nature

    “Neither is it reasonable that art should gain the pre-eminence of our great and powerful mother nature. We have so surcharged her with the additional ornaments and graces we have added to the beauty and riches of her own works by our inventions, that we have almost smothered her; yet in other places, where she…

  • The world as our mirror

    “This great world, which some multiply further as being only a species under one genus, is the mirror in which we must look at ourselves to recognize ourselves from the proper angle. In short, I want it to be the book of my student.” I.26 “Of the education of children” (p. 141)

  • Some other tags

    This is a post to hold some other tags that will be useful later.