what this man says, I will do
Obstinacy and contention are common qualities
Occasion to La Boetie to write his "Voluntary Servitude"
Philosophy has discourses proper for childhood
Philosophy is that which instructs us to live
Philosophy looked upon as a vain and fantastic name
Preface to bribe the benevolence of the courteous reader
Reading those books, converse with the great and heroic souls
Silence, therefore, and modesty are very advantageous qualities
So many trillions of men, buried before us
Sparing and an husband of his knowledge
The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine
The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness
Their labour is not to delivery, but about conception
There is nothing like alluring the appetite and affections
They begin to teach us to live when we have almost done living
Things grow familiar to men's minds by being often seen
To condemn them as impossible, is by a temerarious presumption
To contemn what we do not comprehend
To go a mile out of their way to hook in a fine word
To know by rote, is no knowledge
Tongue will grow too stiff to bend
Totally brutified by an immoderate thirst after knowledge
Unbecoming rudeness to carp at everything
Unjust to exact from me what I do not owe
Where their profit is, let them there have their pleasure too
Who by their fondness of some fine sounding word

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazlitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 6.

XXVII. Of friendship.
XXVIII. Nine-and-twenty sonnets of Estienne de la Boetie.
XXIX. Of moderation.
XXX. Of cannibals.
XXXI. That a man is soberly to judge of the divine ordinances.
XXXII. That we are to avoid pleasures, even at the expense of life.
XXXIII. That fortune is oftentimes observed to act by the rule of
reason.
XXXIV. Of one defect in our government.
XXXV. Of the custom of wearing clothes.
XXXVI. Of Cato the Younger.
XXXVII. That we laugh and cry for the same thing.
XXXVIII. Of solitude.

CHAPTER XXVII

OF FRIENDSHIP

Having considered the proceedings of a painter that serves me, I had a
mind to imitate his way. He chooses the fairest place and middle of any
wall, or panel, wherein to draw a picture, which he finishes with his