Biography
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Essays by
Against idleness
’Tis a generous desire to wish to die usefully and like a man, but the effect lies not so much in our resolution as in our good fortune.
All things have their season
Our studies and desires should sometime be sensible of age; yet we have one foot in the grave and still our appetites and pursuits spring every day anew within us.
Of anger
There is no passion that so much transports men from their right judgment as anger.
Cowardice, the mother of cruelty
Every one is sensible that there is more bravery and disdain in subduing an enemy than in cutting his throat.
Of the inconstancy of our actions
Considering the natural instability of our manners and opinions, I have often thought even the best authors a little out in so obstinately endeavouring to make of us any constant and solid contexture.
Of a monstrous child
Whatever falls out contrary to custom we say is contrary to nature, but nothing, whatever it be, is contrary to her. Let, therefore, this universal and natural reason expel the error and astonishment that novelty brings along with it.
Not to counterfeit being sick
Fortune, I know not how, sometimes seems to delight in taking us at our word; and I have heard several examples related of people who have become really sick, by only feigning to be so.
Of posting
I have been none of the least able in this exercise, which is proper for men of my pitch, well-knit and short; but I give it over; it shakes us too much to continue it long.
Of the Roman grandeur
Marcus Antonius said that the greatness of the people of Rome was not so much seen in what they took, as in what they gave.
That our mind hinders itself
Nothing presents itself to us wherein there is not some difference, how little soever; and that, either by the sight or touch, there is always some choice that, though it be imperceptibly, tempts and attracts us.
Of thumbs
Some one, I have forgotten who, having won a naval battle, cut off the thumbs of all his vanquished enemies, to render them incapable of fighting and of handling the oar.
Tomorrow’s a new day
The vice opposite to curiosity is negligence.
Use makes perfect
A man may by custom fortify himself against pain, shame, necessity, and such-like accidents, but as to death, we can experiment it but once, and are all apprentices when we come to it.
That we taste nothing pure
When I religiously confess myself to myself, I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice.