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Opinions
“There is nothing on which men are commonly more intent than on making a way for their opinions.” Of Cripples. 957
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Children
“Children are numbered among the things that we have no great reason to desire, especially at this time when it would be so hard to make them good.” III.9 “Of vanity” (p. 929) I wonder what Montaigne would think if he saw what it was like to raise children today, in our world.
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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)
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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.”…
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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)
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Thousands of mind that trample us underfoot
“It anyone gets intoxicated with his knowledge when he looks beneath him, let him turn his eyes upward toward past ages, and he will lower his horns, finding there so many thousands of minds that trample him underfoot. … No particular quality will make a man proud who balances it against the many weaknesses and…
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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)
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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.]
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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)
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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…