Patience under duress is rarely appreciated by the politically immature.

Gwyn Jones, A History of the Vikings

Boy, you got me confused with a man who repeats himself.

Omar Little (Michael K. Williams), The Wire

In Honor of Brood X

Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die.

Matsuo Bashō

 

The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.

Edward Gibbon

Self knowledge, however, cannot itself redeem.

Jeremy Black, England in the Age of Shakespeare

Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless.  There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change.

H.G.Wells, The Time Machine

 We’re surrounded. That simplifies things.

 Chesty Puller

One should never mistake pattern for meaning. 

Iain M. Banks, The Hydrogen Sonata

It rarely paid to frighten people but it never paid to confuse them.

Lifted & spun a bit from Iain M. Banks, The Hydrogen Sonata

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 

Knowledge is a pile of bricks, and understanding is a way of building.

Theodore  Sturgeon

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.  

A man's worth is just the worth of that which he pursues....Be upright either by nature or by correction.

Contemplate the courses of the stars, as one should do that revolves along with them. Consider also without ceasing the changes of elements, one into another. Speculations upon such things cleanse away the filth of this earthly life.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Book 7)

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

Jesus said:  If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.  If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. 

The Gospel of Thomas, as noted by Elaine Pagels

Our struggle in life requires two virtues, bravery and wisdom -- readiness to endure a danger and skillful knowledge of how to manage it.

Gorgias (the Sophist)

The wind is blowing; adore the wind.

From the Pythagorean symbola

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