Essays of Michel de Montaigne Illustrated by Dali translated by Cotton
Wow. The foreword is from 1580, Montaigne wishes the book to be a full picture of his personality - flaws and genuine imperfections included.
The Numidian men-at-arms had always led with a horse in hand, besides the one that they rode upon, so that they could change in the heat of battle.
Wow. What a world, can I imagine being raised to kill. Regardless of how I felt. And that was the definition of greatness, the purpose, the conquer or die.
Alexander’s horse was so honored after his death he had a city erected in his name. To be great enough that your accompaniment’s become 'greater' than most men…..
“The principle office of wisdom is to distinguish good from evil” - Socrates
Some stoics advise folks to give themselves sometimes the liberty to drink, for it refreshes the soul.
Plato forbids children wine till 18, and to get drunk till 40; but after 40, gives them leave to please themselves and mix with Dionysos, who restores older men their youth and to do things they dare not attempt when sober (dancing and music).
Huh:
Glory is the work of fortune. Like a shadow, glory goes before merit like shadow sometimes goes before a body, and sometimes infinitely exceeds it.
Better:
I care not so much what I am in the opinion of others, as what I am in my own; I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing.
Live quietly.
The actions of virtue are too noble in themselves than to seek it by the vanity of human judgements.
Wow: so glory is caring about what other people think. Can’t.
Archelaus, king of Macedon, walking along the street, somebody threw water on his head.
“Ay but,” said he, “Whoever it was, he did not throw the water upon me, but upon him who he took me to be.”
You didn’t throw water on me, you threw water on the man you mistook me for.
42 looks awesome
161 thumbs
225 wow with color
298 death is the same tomorrow as in 20 years
310 a thousand others die with you
The sharps, as well as the sweets of marriage, are kept secret by the wise. 243
To give women the same counsel against jealousy, would be so much time lost; their very being is made up of suspicious, vanity, and curiosity.
Tis the most dangerous of all their conditions, as the head is of all their members.
Tis all the swine’s flesh, varied by sauces.
Montaigne wrote essays out in “the old country, where [he’ll] hardly see a man who understands the Latin of his pastor, and of French little, if not less.” That way he knows that even if his writing could have been a bit better elsewhere, the work is fully his own.
Alas, poor man! thou hast enough inconveniences that are inevitable without increasing them by thine own intervention.
Our life is divided between folly and prudence.
Fascinating: blessing sneezers was a custom in 1500 too.
The advice that Isocrates gives his king; that he should be splendid in plate and furniture; forasmuch as it is an expense of duration that devolves in his successors; and that he should avoid all magnificences that will in short time be forgotten.
He says not to spend on clothes, for your house, attendants, and kitchen already answer for your wealth.
You may spend wantonly abroad. But domestically you will lose the respect of your constituents.
A king has nothing properly of his own, he owes himself to others.
A superior is made so for the profit of the inferior, and a physician for a sick person, not himself.
Win people’s affection by the benefits of thy virtue, not purse.
As Xenophilus the musician, who loved a hundred and six years in perfect and continual health.
It looks like montaigne didn’t know him personally, so this is a ‘story’ hopefully true but potentially agreed upon, if true then interesting implications for us doing 0 for longevity and so far getting better at deleting death problems.
How many have died before they arrived at thine age?
Let us disarm death. Upon all occasions of every shape; at the stumbling of a horse, at the falling of a tile, at the least prick with a pin, let us presently consider, and say to ourselves, “Well, and if it had been death itself?” P. 300
Wow: “what may be done tomorrow may be done today. Hazards and dangers do nothing to hasten our end; and if we consider how many thousands more remain and hang over our heads, besides the accident that immediately threatens us, we shall find that the sound and the sick, and those that are abroad at sea, and those that sit by the fire, those who are engaged in battle, and those who sit idle at home, are the one as near it as the other.
W the first
Nature herself assists and encourages us: if the death be sudden and violent, we have not leisure to fear; if otherwise, I perceive that as I engage further in my disease, I naturally enter into a certain loathing and disdain for life.
If you have lived a day, you have seen all: one day is equal and like to all other days. There is no other light, no other shade; this very sun, this moon, these very stars, this very order and disposition of things, is the same your ancestors enjoyed.
The utility of living consists not in length of days, but in use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of your time while it is present with you. 308 w 310
Wow - A thousand men, a thousand animals, a thousand other creatures, die at the same moment you die.
It must be very foolish to condemn a thing you have never experimented in your own person.
Both foolish and impertinant scribblers (like Diomedes who wrote six thousand books on the sole subject of grammar - “words about words only”), as well as vagabonds and idle persons (holiday-goers and lovers of leisure) face justice.
Some people write so they are not totally forgotten
Hm: If my shoe go awry; I let me shirt and cloak do so too; I scorn to mend myself by halves. When I am in bad plight, I fasten upon mischief.
Value what you have above all the rest, and conclude that no beauty can be greater than what you see.
I have sufficiently settled my thoughts to live on less than I have, and live contentedly.
I will not that the pleasure of going abroad spoil the pleasure of being retired at home; on the contrary, I intend they shall nourish and favor one another.
Hm: the smallest and slightest impediments are the most piercing: as the little letters most tire the eyes, so do the little affairs most disturb us.
We care not so much what our being is, as to us and in reality, as what it is to the public observation.
Michel de Montaigne had a poor memory as well.
Hm: Proximity, with me, lessons not defects, but rather exaggerates them. (Within the context of love)
A man more freely and cheerfully enjoys borrowed conveniences when it is not an enjoyment forced by need, and when he has in his own will and fortune means to live without them.
Eleus Hippias furnished himself with knowledge so that he may retire from all other company to enjoy the Muses. He was so careful as to learn to cook, to make his own clothes, to wean himself from the assistance of others.
Maybe this is why I like walking so much. To know I could get somewhere on my own. Without gas or a driver…
When the Lacedaemonians flatter the Athenians, they do not put them in mind of the good they have done for them, but of the benefits they have received from them.
Nations reject gifts sent to them, they aren’t wont to take.
A man should addict himself to the best rules, but not enslave himself to them. 437 bottom.
The world thinks nothing profitable that is not painful.
442 could go with 42, “Thou art come into this world, child, to endure: endure, suffer, and say nothing.
+448 play, run and dine if you can.
Oh, how much does health seem the more pleasant to me after a sickness so near!
Nature has given us pain for the honor and service of pleasure. 447
If I feel anything stirring and fancy myself to consult my pulse or my urine, I shall soon enough feel the pain, by the disease of fear.
Interesting figure of speech from back then: “I have sometimes kept out of the way at meals to sharpen my appetite against the next morning”
“I have done nothing today.” What? have you not lived? This is the most fundamental and illustrious of your occupations.
For all actions, says philosophy, equally become and honor the wise man.
We ought never be weary of presenting the image of this great man in all patterns of life (you don’t always have to).
I enjoin my soul to look upon pain and pleasure with an eye equally regular and equally firm; but one gayly and one severely, and, so far as one is able, to be careful as to extinguish the one, as to extend the other.
I like this:
When time is good I taste it over again and stick to it. One must run over the ill and settle upon the good. 467
Interesting:
I have formerly caused myself to be disturbed in my sleep, so that I might better and more sensibly relish and taste it.
The foolish enjoy the other pleasures as they do that of sleep, without knowing it. It slides and passes by.
As Alexander said, the end of his labor was to labor.
Temperance is the moderatrix, not the adversary, of pleasure.
The mind does it’s business when we are idle and ill employed.
You are transformed into a beast without peace/free time, a beast makes water as he walks and dungs as it runs.
“I find nothing so humble and mortal in the life of Alexander, as his fancies about immortalization”