Essays of montaigne

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1923

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Page 39 - I love stout expressions amongst gentlemen, and to have them speak as they think ; we must fortify and harden our hearing against this tenderness of the ceremonious sound of words. I love a strong and manly familiarity and conversation : a friendship that pleases itself in the sharpness and vigour of its communication, like love in biting and scratching : it is not vigorous and generous enough, if it be not quarrelsome, if it be civilised and artificial, if it treads nicely and fears the shock...
Page 247 - Quis deus hanc mundi temperet arte domum, Qua venit exoriens, qua deficit, unde coactis Cornibus in plenum menstrua luna redit...
Page 188 - But there is a sort of ignorance, strong and generous, that yields nothing in honour and courage to knowledge; an ignorance, which to conceive requires no less knowledge than to receive knowledge itself.
Page 195 - Seu plures calor ille vias et caeca relaxat Spiramenta , novas veniat qua succus in herbas ; Seu durat magis , et venas astringit hiantes , Ne tenues pluviae , rapidive potentia solis Acrior, aut Boreae penetrabile frigus adurat.
Page 315 - Atlanticum impune : me pascunt olivae, 15 me cichorea levesque malvae. frui paratis et valido mihi, Latoe, dones et, precor, Integra cum mente nec turpem senectam degere nec cithara carentem.
Page 184 - I presently surrender my passion, and deliver the matter to him without exaggeration, without emphasis, or any painting of my own. A quick and earnest way of speaking, as mine is, is apt to run into hyperbole. There is nothing to which men commonly are more inclined, than to make way for their own opinions ; where the ordinary means fail us, we add command, force, fire, and sword. 'Tis a misfortune to be at such a pass, that the best test of truth is the multitude of believers, in a crowd, where...
Page 116 - Uxor, si cesses, aut te amare cogitat Aut tete amari aut potare atque animo obsequi Et tibi bene esse, soli cum sibi sit male.
Page 12 - It was doubtless a fine thing to bring and plant within the theatre a great number of vast trees, with all their branches in their full verdure, representing a great shady forest, disposed in excellent order, and the first day to throw into it a thousand ostriches, a thousand stags, a thousand boars, and a thousand...
Page 39 - At every opposition, we do not consider whether or no it be just, but, right or wrong, how to disengage ourselves: instead of extending the arms, we thrust out our claws. I could suffer myself to be rudely handled by my friend, so much as to tell me that I am a fool, and talk I know not of what.
Page 87 - I see, not one action, or three, or a hundred, but manners, in common and received use, so ferocious, especially in inhumanity and treachery, which are to me the worst of all vices, that I have not the heart to think of them without horror; and almost as much admire as I detest them: the exercise of these signal villainies carries with it as great signs of vigor and force of soul, as of error and disorder.

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