Montaigne; Wikimedia Commons
Montaigne's Essays
Book III
Michel de Montaigne, a French wise man who lived from 1533 to1592, has written a work named “Essays” in which he collects thoughts he has worked with throughout his life. These thoughts are as valid today as they were then, and I wish to share in brief form those that I have noted when reading his work. The thoughts you find here are collected from his Book III. They follow below, in the order I have noted them. As I proceed with my reading, I will add more of his thoughts.
1)Nobody can avoid saying stupid things. Unlucky is he who says them in a premeditated way. No matter to me. Mine come at random, without premeditation.
2)Our being is cemented with sick qualities: ambition, jealousy, envy, vengeance, superstition, hopelessness. Whoever would remove the seeds of these qualities, would destroy the fundamental conditions of our life.
3)Justice, in itself, natural and universal, is constituted differently and more nobly than this other special, national, which is constituted according to our policy needs.
4)Of this real justice, perfect justice, we do not possess any exact and solid representation, we only deal with its images and shadows. (Cicero)
5)Wisdom does good when it places our desires close to our capacities, to what we are capable of achieving when doing our best. What good is there to have desires that are out of our reach?
6) Glee and health often are at odds with sermons of seriousness and wisdom. However, in my old age I am now the constant prey of seriousness and sermons of wisdom. From the excesses of joy and glee, I have now fallen into those of severity - far worse. Wisdom has its excesses that have no less need for moderation than folly.
7) The subjects of princes who give excessive gifts become excessive in their demands; they do not follow reason, only the example that has been given.
8) If we cannot reach him by our acts, let us take vengeance by talking ill of him.
9) You do not correct the one you hang, you correct others by hanging him.
10) If the act has no elements of the splendor of freedom, it has no grace nor honor.
11) The generous and freely made confession weakens the reproaches and disarms the insult.
12) If a man can be happy with what is sufficient, he will be rich. That not being the case, what riches would be satisfying?
13) We do not notice grace and beauty in their modest forms. They have to be covered by artifice and exaggeration for us to see them. We notice them when they are blown up with hot air, like balloons. Simplicity is invisible, and what is invisible does not exist.
14) When reason is insufficient, we rely on experience. To limit the role of experience by imposing ever more detailed laws (as the emperor Justinian did to curtail the authority of the judges), is to confine the role of experience within the limits of one reason.
1)Nobody can avoid saying stupid things. Unlucky is he who says them in a premeditated way. No matter to me. Mine come at random, without premeditation.
2)Our being is cemented with sick qualities: ambition, jealousy, envy, vengeance, superstition, hopelessness. Whoever would remove the seeds of these qualities, would destroy the fundamental conditions of our life.
3)Justice, in itself, natural and universal, is constituted differently and more nobly than this other special, national, which is constituted according to our policy needs.
4)Of this real justice, perfect justice, we do not possess any exact and solid representation, we only deal with its images and shadows. (Cicero)
5)Wisdom does good when it places our desires close to our capacities, to what we are capable of achieving when doing our best. What good is there to have desires that are out of our reach?
6) Glee and health often are at odds with sermons of seriousness and wisdom. However, in my old age I am now the constant prey of seriousness and sermons of wisdom. From the excesses of joy and glee, I have now fallen into those of severity - far worse. Wisdom has its excesses that have no less need for moderation than folly.
7) The subjects of princes who give excessive gifts become excessive in their demands; they do not follow reason, only the example that has been given.
8) If we cannot reach him by our acts, let us take vengeance by talking ill of him.
9) You do not correct the one you hang, you correct others by hanging him.
10) If the act has no elements of the splendor of freedom, it has no grace nor honor.
11) The generous and freely made confession weakens the reproaches and disarms the insult.
12) If a man can be happy with what is sufficient, he will be rich. That not being the case, what riches would be satisfying?
13) We do not notice grace and beauty in their modest forms. They have to be covered by artifice and exaggeration for us to see them. We notice them when they are blown up with hot air, like balloons. Simplicity is invisible, and what is invisible does not exist.
14) When reason is insufficient, we rely on experience. To limit the role of experience by imposing ever more detailed laws (as the emperor Justinian did to curtail the authority of the judges), is to confine the role of experience within the limits of one reason.