The Complete Essays of Montaigne

by Michel de Montaigne

The honor of the combat consists in the jealousy of courage, not of craft.

CThe longest of my plans has not a year in extent. Henceforth I think of nothing but making an end; I rid myself of all new hopes and enterprises; I take my last leave of every place I go away from, and dispossess myself every day of what I have: For a long time I have had neither losses nor gains. I have more provisions for the road than I have road left [Seneca].

In short, this is all the comfort that I find in my old age, that it deadens in me many desires and cares by which life is troubled—care for how the world goes, care for riches, for greatness, for knowledge, for health, for myself. AThat man2 is learning to speak when he needs to learn to be silent forever.

AI find by experience that there is quite a difference between the erratic impulses of the soul and a habit of resolute steadfastness. And I see very well that nothing is beyond our power: we can even, says someone,3 surpass the deity itself—inasmuch as it is a greater thing to make oneself impassible by one’s own efforts than to be so by one’s natural condition—even combine with man’s frailty a godlike resolution and assurance.

AThere is no passion that so shakes the clarity of our judgment as anger. No one would hesitate to punish with death a judge who had condemned his criminal through anger. Why is it any more permissible for fathers and schoolmasters to whip and chastise children when they are in anger? It is no longer correction, it is vengeance. Chastisement takes the place of a medicine for children; and would we tolerate a doctor who was incensed and angry with his patient?

Saying is one thing and doing is another. We must consider the preaching apart from the preacher. Those men have given themselves an easy game who, in our time, have tried to attack the truth of our Church through the vices of her ministers; she draws her testimony from elsewhere. It is a stupid way of arguing, which would throw all things back into confusion. A man of good morals may have false opinions, and a wicked man may preach the truth, yes, even a man who does not believe it. No doubt it is a beautiful harmony when doing and saying go together, and I do not want to deny that words are of greater authority and efficacy when actions follow.

It is a passion that takes pleasure in itself and flatters itself. How many times, when we have got in stride for a wrong reason, if we are offered some good defense or excuse, we are vexed even at truth and innocence!

We incorporate anger by hiding it; as Diogenes said to Demosthenes, who, for fear of being seen in a tavern, was drawing back further inside it: “The further back you go, the deeper in you go.” I advise that we rather give our valet a slap on the cheek a little out of season than strain our inclination to represent this wise bearing.

There is likewise no good deed that does not rejoice a wellborn nature. Indeed there is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience. A boldly vicious soul may perhaps arm itself with security, but with this complacency and satisfaction it cannot provide itself. It is no slight pleasure to feel oneself preserved from the contagion of so depraved an age, and to say to oneself: “If anyone should see right into my soul, still he would not find me guilty either of anyone’s affliction or ruin, or of vengeance or envy, or of public offense against the laws, or of innovation and disturbance, or of failing in my word; and in spite of what the license of the times allows and teaches each man, still I have not put my hand either upon the property or into the purse of any Frenchman, and have lived only on my own, both in war and in peace; nor have I used any man’s work without paying his wages.” These testimonies of conscience give us pleasure; and this natural rejoicing is a great boon to us, and the only payment that never fails us.

BWe must not nail ourselves down so firmly to our humors and dispositions. Our principal talent is the ability to apply ourselves to various practices. It is existing, but not living, to keep ourselves bound and obliged by necessity to a single course.

CBooks are for my mind one of the kinds of occupations which entice it away from its study. BAt the first thoughts that come to it, it stirs about and shows signs of vigor in all directions, practices its touch now for power, now for order and grace, Carranges, moderates, and fortifies itself. BIt has the power to awaken its faculties by itself. Nature has given to it as to all minds enough material of its own for its use, and enough subjects of its own for invention and judgment. CMeditation is a powerful and full study for anyone who knows how to examine and exercise himself vigorously: I would rather fashion my mind than furnish