“ I do not find anything a gentleman can say so vicious in him as unsaying what he has said is infamous, when to unsay it is authoritatively extracted from him; forasmuch as obstinacy is more excusable in a man of honour than pusillanimity. Passions are as easy for me to evade, as they are hard for me to moderate ”
Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (1580). copy citation
Author | Michel de Montaigne |
---|---|
Source | The Essays of Michel de Montaigne |
Topic | obstinacy passion |
Date | 1580 |
Language | English |
Reference | |
Note | Translated by Charles Cotton |
Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm |
Context
“You have braved him in your heat and anger, and you would flatter and appease him in your cooler and better sense; and by that means lay yourself lower and at his feet, whom before you pretended to overtop. I do not find anything a gentleman can say so vicious in him as unsaying what he has said is infamous, when to unsay it is authoritatively extracted from him; forasmuch as obstinacy is more excusable in a man of honour than pusillanimity. Passions are as easy for me to evade, as they are hard for me to moderate:
“Exscinduntur facilius ammo, quam temperantur.” [“They are more easily to be eradicated than governed.”]
He who cannot attain the noble Stoical impassibility, let him secure himself in the bosom of this popular stolidity of mine;”
source