Here in no alien place he sat....

P. D. James, The Private Patient

 

Our history is as much a product of torsion and stress as it is of unilinear drive. It is amusing that at any given point of time we haven't the slightest idea of what is happening to us. The present wars and ideological changes of nervousness and fighting seem to have direction, but in a hundred years it is more than possible it will be seen that the direction was quite different from the one we supposed.The limitation of the seeing point in time, as well as in space, is a warping lens.

John Steinbeck,  The Log from the Sea of Cortez

What’s wisdom but knowing what is right, and what is the right thing to do?

Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons

Men get very fond of the things they defend, especially when they find themselves defending something stupid.


Theodore Sturgeon in his wonderful short story, The Widget, The Wadget, and Boff 

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. 

A.A. Milne

Montaigne

When when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts are some part of the time taken up with external occurrences, I some part of the time call them back again to my walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of that solitude, and to myself.... Have you known how to take repose, you have done more than he who has taken empires and cities.... of all the infirmities we have, 'tis the most barbarous to despise our being.... 'Tis an absolute and, as it were, a divine perfection, for a man to know how loyally to enjoy his being. We seek other conditions, by reason we do not understand the use of our own; and go out of ourselves, because we know not how there to reside. 'Tis to much purpose to go upon stilts, for, when upon stilts, we must yet walk with our legs; and when seated upon the most elevated throne in the world, we are but seated upon our breech. The fairest lives, in my opinion, are those which regularly accommodate themselves to the common and human model without miracle, without extravagance. Old age stands a little in need of a more gentle treatment. Let us recommend that to God, the protector of health and wisdom, but let it be gay and sociable.


Montaigne, in his 54th year at the end of his magisterial Essays.   He died at age 59 after suffering some years of kidney stones.

This ends submissions from my reading of the Essays over the last three years.  They can be found here.  

When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; a man's accusations of himself are always believed; his praises never.... the wise may learn more of fools, than fools can of the wise.

Montaigne

The wind is blowing; adore the wind.

From the Pythagorean symbola

We must not rivet ourselves so fast to our humours and complexions: our chiefest sufficiency is to know how to apply ourselves to divers employments.
 
The principal use of reading to me is, that by various objects it rouses my reason, and employs my judgment, not my memory. 

Montaigne

The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly; its grandeur does not exercise itself in grandeur, but in mediocrity.

Montaigne

Content yourself ... to swim in troubled waters without fishing in them.

Montaigne

I do not disapprove the use we make of things the earth produces, nor doubt, in the least, of the power and fertility of Nature, and of its application to our necessities: I very well see that pikes and swallows live by her laws; but I mistrust the inventions of our mind, our knowledge and art, to countenance which, we have abandoned Nature and her rules, and wherein we keep no bounds nor moderation. 

Montaigne

Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.... It is in changing that things find repose.

Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars.

Heraclitus (per Philip Wheelwright, The PreSocratics)

While sitting at the fireside in the winter, at ease on soft couches, well fed, sipping tasty wine and nibbling tidbits, it is then that a host may duly inquire of his guest:  Who are you among men, and whence do you come?

Xenophanes, (per Philip Wheelwright, The PreSocratics)

To see into thy nature, O Zeus, is baffling to the mind. I have been praying to thee without knowing whether thou art necessity or nature or simply the intelligence of mortals. 

Euripides, The Trojan Women (per Philip Wheelwright, The PreSocratics

They who retire themselves from the common offices, from that infinite number of troublesome rules that fetter a man of exact honesty in civil life, are in my opinion very discreet.

Montaigne

Events cause knowledge, but knowledge does not cause events. 

Montaigne

Philosophy has not been able to find out any way to tranquillity that is good in common, let every one seek it in particular.

Michel de Montaigne

I leave the choice of my arguments to fortune, and take that she first presents to me; they are all alike to me, I never design to go through any of them; for I never see all of anything…. Of a hundred members and faces that everything has, I take one, one while to look it over only, another while to ripple up the skin, and sometimes to pinch it to the bones: I give a stab, not so wide but as deep as I can, and am for the most part tempted to take it in hand by some new light I discover in it.

Michel de Montaigne

The fruit of riches is in abundance; satiety declares abundance.

"Divinarum fructus est in copia; copiam declarat satietas." —Cicero,
as quoted by Michel de Montaigne