Michel de Montaigne

“ Virtue is a very vain and frivolous thing if it derive its recommendation
from glory; and 'tis to no purpose that we endeavour to give it a station
by itself, and separate it from fortune; for what is more accidental than
reputation? ”

“ God alone glory and honour appertain; and there is nothing so remote from
reason as that we should go in quest of it for ourselves; for, being
indigent and necessitous within, our essence being imperfect, and having
continual need of amelioration, 'tis to that we ought to employ all our
endeavour. We are all hollow and empty; 'tis not with wind and voice
that we are to fill ourselves ”

“ The offence, both towards God and in the conscience, would be as great to
desire as to do it; and, besides, they are actions so private and secret
of themselves, as would be easily enough kept from the knowledge of
others, wherein the honour consists, if they had not another respect to
their duty, and the affection they bear to chastity, for itself. Every
woman of honour will much rather choose to lose her honour than to hurt
her conscience. ”

“ Arbitrio popularis aura."
["Virtue, repudiating all base repulse, shines in taintless
honours, nor takes nor leaves dignity at the mere will of the
vulgar."—Horace, Od., iii. 2, 17.]
It is not for outward show that the soul is to play its part, but for
ourselves within, where no eyes can pierce but our own; there she defends
us from the fear of death, of pain, of shame itself: there she arms us
against the loss of our children, friends, and fortunes: and when
opportunity presents itself, she leads us on to the hazards of war ”

“ There are so many ways to avoid hazarding a
man's own person, that we have deceived the world a thousand times before
we come to be engaged in a real danger: and even then, finding ourselves
in an inevitable necessity of doing something, we can make shift for that
time to conceal our apprehensions by setting a good face on the business,
though the heart beats within ”

“ The Lacedaemonians,
entering into battle, sacrificed to the Muses, to the end that their
actions might be well and worthily written, looking upon it as a divine
and no common favour, that brave acts should find witnesses that could
give them life and memory. Do we expect that at every musket-shot we
receive, and at every hazard we run, there must be a register ready to
record it? and, besides, a hundred registers may enrol them whose
commentaries will not last above three days, and will never come to the
sight of any one. We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings ”

“ He who is only a good man that men may know it, and that he may be the
better esteemed when 'tis known; who will not do well but upon condition
that his virtue may be known to men: is one from whom much service is not
to be expected ”

“ He [Cicero] says more:
"Ego hoc judico, si quando turpe non sit, tamen non
esse non turpe, quum id a multitudine laudatur."
["I am of opinion, that though a thing be not foul in itself,
yet it cannot but become so when commended by the multitude."
—Cicero, De Finib., ii. 15.]
No art, no activity of wit, could conduct our steps so as to follow so
wandering and so irregular a guide; in this windy confusion of the noise
of vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on, no way worth anything
can be chosen. Let us not propose to ourselves so floating and wavering
an end ”

“ Ulysses is of this nature:
"Deca vers nous, deca, o tres-louable Ulysse,
Et le plus grand honneur don't la Grece fleurisse."
["Come hither to us, O admirable Ulysses, come hither, thou greatest
ornament and pride of Greece."—Homer, Odysseus, xii. 184.]
These philosophers said, that all the glory of the world was not worth an
understanding man's holding out his finger to obtain it:
"Gloria quantalibet quid erit, si gloria tantum est?" ”