Elevated Thoughts

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The joists in the tower in which Montaigne wrote his Essays are inscribed with his favorite quotations from Greek and Latin authors, many of which appear in his writings: “It is not so much things that torment man, as the opinions he has of things.” “Every reasoning has its contrary.” “Wind swells bladders, opinion swells men.”

He wrote, “The room pleases me because it is somewhat difficult of access, and retired, as much on account of the utility of the exercise, as because I there avoid the crowd. Here is my seat, my place, my rest. I try to make it purely my own, and to free this single corner from conjugal, filial, and civil community.”

The numbers in the diagram below correspond to this table in the German Wikipedia. English translations are here.

In large Latin letters on the central rafter are the words “I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. I PAUSE. I EXAMINE.”

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Image: © Roman Eisele / CC BY-SA 4.0
| Literature · Quotations

Adages

Aphorisms from Norman Macdonald’s Maxims and Moral Reflections, 1827:

  • By speaking contemptibly of our enemies, we disgrace our own hostility.
  • We would be successful in most enterprises of life, were we to take that advice to ourselves which we give to others in similar circumstances.
  • Severity of punishment deters minor crimes, but renders greater ones more certain and determined.
  • Pride, like love, is sure to discover itself; because it can only derive value from the success with which it affects others.
  • Were there no fools there would be no flatterers.
  • The less we know of ourselves, the worse qualified we are to judge correctly of others.
  • No end can be honorable that is dishonorably obtained.
  • The better a man is known to himself, the more easily he is understood by others.
  • There are two sorts of people that are never contented: they that do not know what they desire, and they that attempt impossibilities.
  • The failure of many designs is owing to a confidence of success.
  • A sure way, sometimes, to expose our virtue, is to endeavor to conceal it.
  • A man is more deserving of success, that claims not adulation as his first conquest.
  • We advise others better than ourselves.
  • Most men have two principles, one practical, another professional.
  • In cunning, our pride oftener dreads disappointment than our interest.

“Most men know how to take offence; but few know how to forgive — pride is always impatient; magnanimity, tolerant and pacific.”

| Quotations

Unquote

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“The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.” — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

| Quotations

Unquote

“We have got to learn to think scientifically, not only about inanimate things, but about ourselves and one another. It is possible to do this.” — J.B.S. Haldane

“Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.” — Marcus Aurelius

| Quotations

Gatherings

“I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.” — Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby

“At any gathering I always feel as though I am the youngest person in the room.” — W.H. Auden

“The difference between what is commonly called ordinary company and good company, is only hearing the same things said in a little room or in a large saloon, at small tables or at great tables, before two candles or twenty sconces.” — Pope, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1727

| Quotations · Society

“Dry Pants Eat No Fish”

Bulgarian proverbs:

  • Hunger sees nothing but bread.
  • In every village is the grave of Christ.
  • The clean gets dirty more easily.
  • The devil knows everything except where women sharpen their knives.
  • Forests have eyes, meadows ears.
  • God’s feet are of wool; his hands are of iron.
  • One guest hates the other, and the host both.
  • Do not lie for lack of news.
  • The oversaintly saint is not pleasing even unto God.
  • Man is ever self-forgiving.
  • God does not shave — why should I?
  • A long dark night — the year.
  • Do not salt other people’s food.
  • Become a sheep and you will see the wolf.
  • The smaller saints will be the ruin of God.
  • Where there is union a bullet can swim.
  • The wife carries her husband on her face; the husband carries his wife on his linen.
  • When a wool merchant speaks of sheep he means cloth.

And “God is not sinless. He created the world.”

| Quotations

Unquote

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“It is a well-known fact, too, that in the ancient world in which the entire population were non-smokers, crime of the most horrid type was rampant. It was a non-smoker who committed the first sin and brought death into the world and all our woe. Nero was a non-smoker. Lady Macbeth was a non-smoker. Decidedly, the record of the non-smokers leaves them little to be proud of.” — Robert Lynd

| Quotations