Michel de Montaigne

“ As we see some idle-fallow grounds, if they be fat and fertile, to bring foorth store and sundry roots of wilde and unprofitable weeds, and that to keep them in use we must subject and imploy them with certain seeds for our use and service; and as wee see some women, though single and alone, often to bring foorth lumps of shapelesse flesh, whereas to produce a perfect and naturall generation, they must be manured with another kinde of seed ”

“ It is not long since I retired myselfe unto mine owne house, with full purpose, as much as lay in me, not to trouble myselfe with any businesse, but solitarily and quietly to weare out the remainder of my well-nighspent life ”

“ That contrariwise playing the skittish and loosebroken jade, he takes a hundred times more cariere and libertie unto himselfe, than hee did for others, and begets in me so many extravagant Chimeræs, and fantasticall monsters, so orderlesse, and without any reason, one hudling upon another, that at leasure to view the foolishnesse and monstrous strangenesse of them, I have begun to keepe a register of them, hoping, if I live, one day to make him ashamed, and blush at himselfe. ”