Michel de Montaigne

“ Shall I say
this by the way, that I see in greater esteem than 'tis worth, and in use
solely among ourselves, a certain image of scholastic probity, a slave to
precepts, and fettered with hope and fear? I would have it such as that
laws and religions should not make, but perfect and authorise it; that
finds it has wherewithal to support itself without help, born and rooted
in us from the seed of universal reason, imprinted in every man by
nature. ”

“ I never saw any peasant among my neighbours cogitate with what
countenance and assurance he should pass over his last hour; nature
teaches him not to think of death till he is dying; and then he does it
with a better grace than Aristotle, upon whom death presses with a double
weight, both of itself and from so long a premeditation; and, therefore,
it was the opinion of Caesar, that the least premeditated death was the
easiest and the most happy:
"Plus dolet quam necesse est, qui ante dolet, quam necesse est." ”

“ Death
is, peradventure, an indifferent thing; peradventure, a thing to be
desired. 'Tis nevertheless to be believed, if it be a transmigration
from one place to another, that it is a bettering of one's condition to
go and live with so many great persons deceased, and to be exempt from
having any more to do with unjust and corrupt judges; if it be an
annihilation of our being, 'tis yet a bettering of one's condition to
enter into a long and peaceable night; we find nothing more sweet in life
than quiet repose and a profound sleep without dreams. ”

“ The sentiment of present death sometimes, of itself, animates us with a
prompt resolution not to avoid a thing that is utterly inevitable: many
gladiators have been seen in the olden time, who, after having fought
timorously and ill, have courageously entertained death, offering their
throats to the enemies' sword and bidding them despatch. The sight of
future death requires a courage that is slow, and consequently hard to be
got. If you know not how to die, never trouble yourself ”

“ We should never
have recognised the nobility and splendour of his admirable conceptions
under so mean a form; we, who think all things low and flat that are not
elevated, by learned doctrine, and who discern no riches but in pomp and
show. This world of ours is only formed for ostentation: men are only
puffed up with wind, and are bandied to and fro like tennis-balls. He
proposed to himself no vain and idle fancies; his design was to furnish
us with precepts and things that more really and fitly serve to the use
of life ”

“ Is not simplicity, as we take it,
cousin-german to folly and a quality of reproach? Socrates makes his
soul move a natural and common motion: a peasant said this; a woman said
that; he has never anybody in his mouth but carters, joiners, cobblers,
and masons; his are inductions and similitudes drawn from the most common
and known actions of men; every one understands him. ”

“ He
represents, in an inartificial boldness and infantine security, the pure
and first impression and ignorance of nature; for it is to be believed
that we have naturally a fear of pain, but not of death, by reason of
itself; 'tis a part of our being, and no less essential than living.
To what end should nature have begotten in us a hatred to it and a horror
of it, considering that it is of so great utility to her in maintaining
the succession and vicissitude of her works? and that in this universal
republic, it conduces more to birth and augmentation than to loss or
ruin? ”

“ If we have not known
how to live, 'tis injustice to teach us how to die, and make the end
difform from all the rest; if we have known how to live firmly and
quietly, we shall know how to die so too. They may boast as much as they
please:
"Tota philosophorum vita commentatio mortis est;"
["The whole life of philosophers is the meditation of death."
—Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., ii. 30.]
but I fancy that, though it be the end, it is not the aim of life; 'tis
its end, its extremity, but not, nevertheless, its object; it ought
itself to be its own aim and design ”

“ Socrates shall be one; for, as I remember, he speaks something to this
purpose to the judges who sat upon his life and death.
[That which follows is taken from the Apology of Socrates in Plato,
chap. 17, &c.]
"I am afraid, my masters, that if I entreat you not to put me to death, I
shall confirm the charge of my accusers, which is, that I pretend to be
wiser than others, as having some more secret knowledge of things that
are above and below us. I have neither frequented nor known death, nor
have ever seen any person that has tried its qualities, from whom to
inform myself. ”

“ Besides, the method of arguing, of which Socrates here makes use, is it
not equally admirable both in simplicity and vehemence? Truly it is much
more easy to speak like Aristotle and to live like Caesar than to speak
and live as Socrates did; there lies the extreme degree of perfection and
difficulty; art cannot reach it. Now, our faculties are not so trained
up; we do not try, we do not know them; we invest ourselves with those of
others, and let our own lie idle ”

“ That image of Socrates' discourses, which his friends have
transmitted to us, we approve upon no other account than a reverence to
public sanction: 'tis not according to our own knowledge; they are not
after our way; if anything of the kind should spring up now, few men
would value them. We discern no graces that are not pointed and puffed
out and inflated by art; such as glide on in their own purity and
simplicity easily escape so gross a sight as ours ”

“ Plutarch's way, by how much it is
more disdainful and farther stretched, is, in my opinion, so much more
manly and persuasive: and I am apt to believe that his soul had more
assured and more regular motions. The one more sharp, pricks and makes
us start, and more touches the soul; the other more constantly solid,
forms, establishes, and supports us, and more touches the understanding. ”

“ Nature has imprinted in beasts the care of themselves and of their
conservation; they proceed so far as hitting or hurting to be timorous of
being worse, of themselves, of our haltering and beating them, accidents
subject to their sense and experience; but that we should kill them, they
cannot fear, nor have they the faculty to imagine and conclude such a
thing as death ”

“ I should willingly maintain the priority in good
things, according to the song that Plato calls an idle thing, taken out
of some ancient poet: "health, beauty, riches." Aristotle says that the
right of command appertains to the beautiful; and that, when there is a
person whose beauty comes near the images of the gods, veneration is
equally due to him. To him who asked why people oftener and longer
frequent the company of handsome persons: "That question," said he, "is
only to be asked by the blind." ”

“ Cato 'tis most manifest that 'tis a procedure extended far beyond the
common ways of men: in the brave exploits of his life, and in his death,
we find him always mounted upon the great horse; whereas the other ever
creeps upon the ground, and with a gentle and ordinary pace, treats of
the most useful matters, and bears himself, both at his death and in the
rudest difficulties that could present themselves, in the ordinary way of
human life. ”

“ See him plead before his judges; observe by what reasons he rouses his
courage to the hazards of war; with what arguments he fortifies his
patience against calumny, tyranny, death, and the perverseness of his
wife: you will find nothing in all this borrowed from arts and sciences:
the simplest may there discover their own means and strength; 'tis not
possible more to retire or to creep more low. He has done human nature a
great kindness in showing it how much it can do of itself.
We are all of us richer than we think we are ”

“ That reason which strengthens Socrates from his vicious bend
renders him obedient to the gods and men of authority in his city:
courageous in death, not because his soul is immortal, but because he is
mortal. 'Tis a doctrine ruinous to all government, and much more hurtful
than ingenious and subtle, which persuades the people that a religious
belief is alone sufficient, and without conduct, to satisfy the divine
justice. Use demonstrates to us a vast distinction betwixt devotion and
conscience.
I have a favourable aspect, both in form and in interpretation:
"Quid dixi, habere me? ”

“ Is it
not then, as we say, that the stolidity and want of apprehension in the
vulgar give them that patience m present evils, and that profound
carelessness of future sinister accidents? That their souls, in being
more gross and dull, are less penetrable and not so easily moved? If it
be so, let us henceforth, in God's name, teach nothing but ignorance;
'tis the utmost fruit the sciences promise us, to which this stolidity so
gently leads its disciples.
We have no want of good masters, interpreters of natural simplicity. ”

“ What good will this curiosity do us, to anticipate all the inconveniences
of human nature, and to prepare ourselves with so much trouble against
things which, peradventure, will never befall us?
"Parem passis tristitiam facit, pati posse;"
["It troubles men as much that they may possibly suffer,
as if they really did suffer."—Idem, ibid., 74.]
not only the blow, but the wind of the blow strikes us: or, like
phrenetic people—for certainly it is a phrensy—to go immediately and
whip yourself, because it may so fall out that Fortune may one day make
you undergo it ”

“ Selim, the most cruel conqueror that ever was, to see that when he
subdued Egypt, the beautiful gardens about Damascus being all open, and
in a conquered land, and his army encamped upon the very place, should be
left untouched by the hands of the soldiers, by reason they had not
received the signal of pillage.
But is there any disease in a government that it is worth while to physic
with such a mortal drug?— [i.e. as civil war.] ”

“ The sharpness of this imagination springs from our curiosity: 'tis thus
we ever impede ourselves, desiring to anticipate and regulate natural
prescripts. It is only for the doctors to dine worse for it, when in the
best health, and to frown at the image of death ”

“ Tis a good, if duly considered, which has in it, as the other goods of
men have, a great deal of vanity and weakness, proper and natural to
itself, and that costs very dear. Its acquisition is far more hazardous
than that of all other meat or drink; for, as to other things, what we
have bought we carry home in some vessel, and there have full leisure to
examine our purchase, how much we shall eat or drink of it, and when: but
sciences we can, at the very first, stow into no other vessel than the
soul ”

“ All our sufficiency which
exceeds the natural is well-nigh superfluous and vain: 'tis much if it
does not rather burden and cumber us than do us good:
"Paucis opus est literis ad mentem bonam:"
["Little learning is needed to form a sound mind."
—Seneca, Ep., 106.]
'tis a feverish excess of the mind; a tempestuous and unquiet instrument.
Do but recollect yourself, and you will find in yourself natural
arguments against death, true, and the fittest to serve you in time of
necessity: 'tis they that make a peasant, and whole nations, die with as
much firmness as a philosopher. ”

“ Nature did him wrong. There is nothing more probable than the
conformity and relation of the body to the soul:
"Ipsi animi magni refert, quali in corpore locati sint: multo enim a
corpore existunt, qux acuant mentem: multa qua obtundant;"
["It is of great consequence in what bodies minds are placed, for
many things spring from the body that may sharpen the mind, and many
that may blunt it."—Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., i. 33.]
this refers to an unnatural ugliness and deformity of limbs ”

“ There cannot a worse state of things be imagined
than where wickedness comes to be legitimate, and assumes, with the
magistrates' permission, the cloak of virtue:
"Nihil in speciem fallacius, quam prava religio,
ubi deorum numen prxtenditur sceleribus."
["Nothing has a more deceiving face than false religion, where the
divinity of the gods is obscured by crimes."—Livy, xxxix. 16.]
The extremest sort of injustice, according to Plato, is where that which
is unjust should be reputed for just. ”

“ I should, moreover, compromise your
duty, and should invite you to unbecoming things; for 'tis not for my
prayers to persuade you, but for the pure and solid reasons of justice.
You have sworn to the gods to keep yourselves upright ”

“ Quod timeas, gravius sustinuisse diu."
["Mortals, in vain you seek to know the uncertain hour of death,
and by what channel it will come upon you."—Propertius, ii. 27, 1.
"'Tis less painful to undergo sudden destruction; 'tis hard to bear
that which you long fear."—Incert. Auct.]
We trouble life by the care of death, and death by the care of life: the
one torments, the other frights us. It is not against death that we
prepare, that is too momentary a thing ”