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Gradually Montaigne realized that by studying and questioning the greater and lesser authors in the light of his own opinions and experience he was studying himself.
Man is indeed an object miraculously vain, various and wavering. It is difficult to found a judgement on him which is steady and uniform.
We are never ‘at home’: we are always outside ourselves. Fear, desire, hope, impel us towards the future; they rob us of feelings and concern for what now is, in order to spend time over what will be – even when we ourselves shall be no more. [C] ‘Calamitosus est animus futuri anxius’ [Wretched is a mind anxious about the future].1
Whoever would do what he has to do would see that the first thing he must learn is to know what he is and what is properly his. And whoever does know himself never considers external things to be his; above all other things he loves and cultivates himself: he rejects excessive concerns as well as useless thoughts and resolutions.
[Folly never thinks it has enough, even when it obtains what it desires, but Wisdom is happy with what is to hand and is never vexed with itself.]3 Epicurus frees his Wise Man from anticipation and worry about the future.
inquires whether even a man who has lived and died ordinately can be called happy if his reputation fares badly and if his descendants are wretched.
If it were necessary to make arrangements for it, my decision would be that in this as in all other of life’s actions each man should conform his principles to the size of his fortune;
The arranging of funerals, the choosing of tombs and the pomp of obsequies are consolations for the living rather than supports for the dead.]
If I had to trouble myself further, I would find it more worthy to imitate those who set about enjoying the disposition and honour of their tombs while they are still alive and breathing, and who take pleasure in seeing their dead faces carved in marble. Happy are they who can please and delight their senses with things insensate – and who can live off their death.
it seems that the soul too, in the same way, loses itself in itself when shaken and disturbed unless it is given something to grasp on to; and so we must always provide it with an object to butt up against and to act upon.
Plutarch says of those who dote over pet monkeys or little dogs that the faculty for loving which is in all of us, rather than remaining useless forges a false and frivolous object for want of a legitimate one.
or even to Fortune as though she had ears subject to our assaults
[There is no point in getting angry against events: they are indifferent to our wrath.]9 [B] But we shall never utter enough abuse against the unruliness of our minds.
I readily trust others: but I would only do so with difficulty if ever I were to give grounds for thinking that I was acting out of despair or from lack of courage rather than from frankness and trust in a man’s word.
nothing is really in our power but our will
By stirring up against their memory the one they have offended they show scant regard for their reputations; and they show even less for their consciences since they cannot, even out of respect for death, make their animosities die, prolonging the life of them beyond their own.
If I can, I will prevent my death from saying anything not first said by my life.
If we do not keep them busy with some particular subject which can serve as a bridle to reign them in, they charge ungovernably about, ranging to and fro over the wastelands of our thoughts:
When the soul is without a definite aim she gets lost; for, as they say, if you are everywhere you are nowhere.
Quisquis ubique habitat, Maxime, nusquam habitat. [Whoever dwells everywhere, Maximus, dwells nowhere at all.]4
[Idleness always produces fickle changes of mind]
that on the contrary it bolted off like a runaway horse, taking far more trouble over itself than it ever did over anyone else; it gives birth to so many chimeras and fantastic monstrosities, one after another, without order or fitness, that, so as to contemplate at my ease their oddness and their strangeness, I began to keep a record of them, hoping in time to make my mind ashamed of itself.
Lying is an accursed vice. It is only our words which bind us together and make us human.
the mad curiosity of our nature which wastes time trying to seize hold of the future as though it were not enough to have to deal with the present:
[O Ruler of Olympus, why did it please thee to add more care to worried mortals by letting them learn of future slaughters by means of cruel omens! Whatever thou hast in store, do it unexpectedly; let the minds of men be blind to their future fate: let him who fears, still cling to hope!]3
[It is not even useful to know what is to happen. It is wretched to suffer to no avail;]
[Wisely does God hide what is to come under the darkness of night, laughing if a mortal projects his anxiety further than is proper… That man will be happy and master of himself who every day declares, ‘I have lived. Tomorrow let Father Jove fill the heavens with dark clouds or with purest light’… Let your mind rejoice in the present: let it loathe to trouble about what lies in the future.]
I would rather order my affairs by casting dice, by lots, than by such fanciful nonsense.
[For who can shoot all day without striking the target occasionally?]
that when men are stunned by their fate in our civil disturbances, they have resorted to almost any superstition, including seeking in the heavens for ancient portents and causes for their ills.
In Plato Socrates mocked Laches for defining fortitude as ‘standing firm in line in the face of the enemy’. ‘What,’ he said, ‘would it be cowardice to defeat them by giving ground?’
provided that his thoughts remain sound and secure, that the seat of his reason suffer no impediment or change of any sort, and that he in no wise give his assent to his fright or pain.
For in his case the impress of the emotions does not remain on the surface but penetrates through to the seat of his reason, infecting and corrupting it: he judges by his emotions and acts in conformity with them.
The Aristotelian sage is not exempt from the emotions: he moderates them.
There is an old Greek saying that men are tormented not by things themselves but by what they think about them.
If what we call evil or torment are only evil or torment insofar as our mental apprehension endows them with those qualities then it lies within our power to change those qualities.
What use is knowledge if, for its sake, we lose the calm and repose which we would enjoy without it and if it makes our condition worse than that of Pyrrho’s pig?
Intelligence was given us for our greater good: shall we use it to bring about our downfall by fighting against the design of Nature and the order of the Universe, which require each creature to use its faculties and resources for its advantage?
Fleeing pain and evil is not at all what the sages counsel – they say that among indifferent actions it is more desirable to perform the one which causes us most trouble.
What causes us to be so impatient of suffering is that we are not used to finding our [C] principal [A] happiness in the soul, [C] nor to concentrating enough on her, who alone is the sovereign Lady of our actions and of our mode of being.
Saint Augustine says, ‘Tantum doluerunt quantum doloribus se inseruerunt.’ [The more they dwelt on suffering, the more they felt it.]
[Never could habit conquer Nature: Nature is unconquerable; yet we have corrupted our souls with unrealities, luxuries, leisure, idleness, listlessness and sloth; we have made them soft with opinions and evil habits.]
Teres, the father of Sitalces, used to say that when he was not waging war he felt that there was no difference between him and his stable-boy.48
How many do we know of who have fled from the sweetness of a calm life at home among people they knew in order to undergo the horrors of uninhabitable deserts, throwing themselves into conditions abject, vile and despised by the world, delighting in them and going so far as to prefer them!
Epicurus said that being rich does not alleviate our worries: it changes them.54 And truly it is not want that produces avarice but plenty.
It is in my nature to like paying my debts, as though I were casting off my shoulders that very image of slavery, a weighty burden; in addition I experience a certain pleasure in satisfying others and behaving justly.
Most thrifty people reckon that living in such uncertainty must be horrible. In the first place they fail to realize that most people have to do so.
And even now, in the present dearth of charity, countless thousands of religious houses live properly, expecting every day from the bounty of Heaven whatever they need for dinner.
Fate57 [B] can make a thousand breaches for poverty to find a way into our riches; [C] often there is no intermediate state between the highest and the lowest fortunes:
[Fortune is glass: it glitters, then it shatters.]
