Michel de Montaigne

“ And if we will take hold of any advantage tending to that purpose, that it is in our power to seize upon them, to employ them to our service, and to use them at our pleasure; it is but the same oddes we have one upon another. To which purpose we have our slaves or bond-men; and were not the Climacides certain women in Syria, which creeping on al foure upon the ground, served the ladies in steed of footstoles or ladders to get up into their coachs? Where the greater part of free men, for very slight causes, abandon both their life and being to the power of others. ”

“ They cannot so order or rule him, not in truth onely, but in imagination, but still some cadence or sound is discovered which escapeth their architecture, bad as it is, and botched together with a thousand false patches and fantasticall peeces. And they have no reason to be excused: for to painters when they pourtray the heaven, the earth, the seas, the hills, the scattered Ilands, we pardon them if they but represent us with some slight apparence of them ”

“ Men and impious actions have every where had correspondent events. Heathen histories acknowledge dignitie, order, justice, prodigies, and oracles, employed for their benefit and instruction in their fabulous religion: God of his mercy daining, peradventure, to foster by his temporal blessings the budding and tender beginnings of such brute knowledge as naturall reason gave them of him athwart the false images of their deluding dreames: Not only false but impious and injurious are those which man hath forged and devised by his owne invention. ”

“ If it be justice to give every one his due, beasts which serve, love, and defend their benefactors, pursue and outrage strangers, and such as offend them, by so doing they represent some shew of our justice, as also in reserving a high kinde of equality in dispensing of what they have to their young ones. Touching friendship, without all comparison, they professe it more lively and shew it more constantly than men. ”

“ One day (saith he) that the Senate of Rome (to please and recreate the common people) causd a great number of wilde beasts to be baited, namely huge great Lions, it so fortuned that there was one amongst the rest, who by reason of his furious and stately carriage, of his unmatched strength, of his great limbs, and of his loud and terror-causing roaring, drew all bystanders eyes to gaze upon him. Amongst other slaves, that in sight of all the people were presented to encounter with these beasts, there chanced to be one Androclus of Dacia, who belonged unto a Roman Lord who had been Consull. ”

“ Shame is matter of some consequence. Concealing, reservation and circumspection are parts of estimation. That sensuality under the maske of Vertu did very ingeniously procure not to be prostituted in the midst of highwaies, not trodden upon and seen by the common sort, alledging the dignity and commodity of her wonted Cabinets. Whereupon some say that to forbid and remove the common brothel-houses is not only to spread whoredome every where, which only was allotted to those places, but also to incite idle and vagabond men to that vice by reason of the difficultie. ”

“ Gods workes doe travers our imaginations,
And crosse our workers in divers different fashions.
Like unto that which Empedocles was wont often to scatter amongst his bookes, as moved by a divine furie and forced by truth. No, no, we feel nothing, we see nothing; all things are hid from us; there is not one that we may establish, how and what it is. ”

“ It is better for us to suffer the order of the world to manage us without further inquisition. A mind warranted from prejudice hath a marvellous preferment to tranquillity. Men that sensure and controule their judges doe never duly submit unto them. How much more docile and tractable are simple and uncurious mindes found both towards the lawes of religion and Politike decrees, than these over-vigilant and nice wits, teachers of divine and humane causes? There is nothing in mans invention wherein is so much likelyhood, possibilities and profit. ”

“ We have no communication with being; for every humane nature is ever in the middle betwee ne being borne and dying; giving nothing of it selfe but an obscure apparence and shadow, and an uncertaine and weake opinion. And if perhaps you fix your thought to take its being, it would be even as if one should go about to graspe the water: for, how much the more he shal close and presse that which by its owne nature is ever gliding, so much the more he shall loose what he would hold and fasten. ”

“ The senses are to some more obscure and dimme, and to some more open and quicke. We receive things differently, according as they are and seeme unto us. Things being then so uncertaine and full of controversie, it is no longer a wonder if it be told us that we may avouch snow to seeme white unto us; but to affirme that it's such in essence and in truth, we cannot warrant ourselves: which foundation being so shaken, all the science in the world must necessarily goe to wracke. What, doe our senses themselves hinder one another? ”

“ And concerning privileges of familiaritie and sympathie caused by conversation, is it not oft seen how some make cats, dogs, and hares so tame, so gentle, and so milde, that, without harming one another, they shall live and continue together? But that which experience teacheth sea-faring men, especially those that come into the seas of Sicilie, of the qualitie and condition of the Halcyon bird, or as some call it alcedo or kings-fisher, exceeds all mens conceit. In what kinds of creature did ever nature so much prefer both their hatching, sitting, brooding, and birth? ”

“ Me thinks learning hath a place among st things necessarie for mans life, as glorie, noblenesse, dignitie, or at most as riches, and such other qualities, which indeed stead the same; but afar off and more in conceipt than by Nature. We have not much more need of offices, of rules, and lawes how to live in our commonwealth than the cranes and ants have in theirs. Which notwithstanding, we see how orderly and without instruction they maintaine themselves. If man were wise he would value everything according to its worth, and as it is either more profitable or more necessarie for life. ”

“ There is great reason why the spirit of man should be so strictly embarred. In his study, as in all things else, he must have his steps numbered and ordered. The limits of his pursuite must be cut out by art. He is bridled and fettered with and by religions, lawes, customes, knowledge, precepts, paines, and recompences, both mortall and immortall; yet we see him, by meanes of his volubility and dissolution, escape all these bonds. It is a vaine body that hath no way about him to be seized on or cut off: a diverse and deformed body, on which neither knot nor hold may be fastened. ”

“ For wherefore doe we from that instant take a title of being, which is but a twinkling in the infinit course of an eternall night, and so short an interruption of our perpetuall and naturall condition? Death possessing what ever is before and behind this moment, and also a good part of this moment. ”

“ What assurance may we then take of so unconstant and wavering a thing, subject by its owne condition to the power of trouble, never marching but a forced and borrowed pace? If our judgement be in the hands of sickenes itselfe and of perturbation; if by rashnesse and folly it be retained to receive the impression of things, what assurance may we expect at his hands? Dares not Philosophie thinke that men produce their greatest effects, and neerest approaching to divinity when they are besides themselves, furious, and madde? We amend our selves by the privation of reason, and by her drooping. ”

“ Preachers know that the emotion which surpriseth them whilst they are in their earnest speech doth animate them towards belief, and that being angrie we more violently give our selves to defend our proposition, emprint it in our selves, and embrace the same with more vehemencie and approbation than we did being in our temperate and reposed sense. ”

“ Behold the ancient considerations which have given the first motion to this famous torrent, so full of dignitie, of honour and reverence, you shall finde them so light and weake that these men which will weigh all and complaine of reason, and who receive nothing upon trust and authoritie, it is no wonder if their judgments are often far distant from common judgement. Men that take Natures first image for a patterne it is no marvaile if in most of their opinions they miss the common-beaten path. ”

“ It is dangerous to reduce them to their beginning: In rowling on they swell and grow greater and greater, as doe our rivers: follow them upward into their source, and you shall find them but a bubble of water, scarce to be discerned, which in gliding on swelleth so proud and gathers so much strength. ”

“ How could that ancient God more evidently accuse, in humane knowledge, the ignorance of divine essence, and teach men that their religion was but a peece of their owne invention, fit to combine their societies then in declaring, as he did, to those which sought the instruction of it, by his sacred Tripos, that the true worshipping of God was that which he found to be observed by the custome of the place where he lived? ”

“ It is a white sheet prepared to take from the finger of God what form so ever it shall please him to imprint therein. The more we addresse and commit our selves to God, and reject our selves, the better it is for us. ”

“ KNOWLEDGE is without all Contradiction a most profitable and chiefe ornament, Those who despise it declare evidently their sottishnesse: Yet doe not I value it at so excessive a rate as some have done; namely Herillus the Philosopher, who grounded his chiefe felicitie upon it, and held that it lay in her power to make us content and wise: which I cannot beleeve, nor that which others have said, that Knowledge is the mother of all vertue, and that all vice proceedeth of ignorance. ”

“ Whereas, in other creatures there is nothing but we love and pleaseth our senses: so that even from their excrements and ordure we draw not only dainties to eat, but our richest ornaments and perfumes. This discourse of beautie toucheth only our common order, and is not so sacrilegious as it intendeth or dareth to comprehend those divine, supernaturally and extraordinarie beauties which sometimes are seen to shine amongst as, even as stars under a corporall and terrestriall veile. ”

“ Protagoras and Ariston gave the justice of the lawes no other essence, but the authority and opinion of the law giver, and that excepted, both good and honest lost their qualities, and remained but vaine and idle names of indifferent things. Thrasymachus, in Plato, thinkes there is no other right but the commoditie of the superior. There is nothing wherein the world differeth so much as in customes and lawes. ”

“ And those who for their health's sake cause themselves to be cut and cauterized, why cannot they endure the sight of the preparations, tooles, instruments and workes of the Chirurgion, since the sight can have no part of the paine or smart? Are not these fit examples to verifie the authoritie which senses have over discourse? ”

“ Even as the preheminence in beauties which Plato ascribeth unto the Sphericall figure, the Epicureans refer the same unto the Piramidall or Square; and say they cannot swallow a God made round like a bowle. But howsoever it is, nature hath no more privileged us in that than in other things, concerning her common lawes. And if we impartially enter into judgement with our selves, we shall finde that if there be any creature or beast lesse favoured in that than we, there are others (and that in great numbers) to whom nature hath been more favourable than to us. ”

“ How comes it to passe we love things contrary, or we bath them, or we love them, or we blame them? How is it that we have different affections holding no more the same sense in the same thought? For it is not likely that without alteration we should take other passions, and what admitteth alterations continueth not the same; and if it be not one selfe same, then it is not: but rather with being all one, the simple being doth also change, ever becoming other from other. And by consequence Natures senses are deceived and lie falsly ”

“ The bond which should binde our judgement, tie our will, enforce and joyne our soules to our Creator, should be a bond taking his doubling and forces, not from our considerations, reasons, and passions, but from a divine and supernaturall compulsion, having but one forme, one countenance, and one grace, which is the authoritie and grace of God. Now our heart being ruled and our soule commanded by faith, reason willeth that she drawes all our other parts to the service of her intent, according to their power and facultie. ”

“ Have tyrants ever failed to find many men vowed to their devotion? Where some for an overplus or supererogation have added this necessity, that they must necessarily accompany them as well in death as in life. ”

“ Each man and every nation doth it according to the measure of his ignorance. How many hidden proprieties and quintessences doe we daily discover? For us to go according to Nature, is but to follow according to our understanding, as far as it can follow, and as much as we can perceive in it. Whatsoever is beyond it, is monstrous and disordered. By this accompt all shall then be monstrous, to the wisest and most sufficient; for even to such humane reason hath perswaded that she had neither ground nor footing, no not so much as to warrant snow to be white: and Anaxagoras said it was blacke. ”

“ All philosophy is divided into these three kindes. Her purpose is to seeke out the truth, the knowledge and the certainty. The Peripatetike, the Epicureans, the Stoikes and others have thought they had found it. These have established the sciences that we have, and as of certaine knowledges have treated of them; Clitomachus, Carneades, and the Academikes have despaired the finding of it, and judged that truth could not be conceived by our meanes. The end of these is weaknesse and ignorance. ”

“ These strange lustfull longings which the ignorance of good, and a false opinion, have possest us with, are in number so infinite that in a manner they expell all those which are naturall, even as if there were so many strangers in a city that should either banish and expell all the naturall inhabitants thereof, or utterly suppresse their ancient power and authority, and absolutely usurping the same, take possession of it. Brute beastes are much more regulare than we, and with more moderation containe themselves within the compasse which nature hath prescribed them ”