Virtue can have naught to do with ease. . . . It craves a steep and thorny path.
Michel de MontaigneAnd therefore, Reader, I myself am the subject of my book: it is not reasonable that you should employ your leisure on a topic so frivolous and so vain. Therefore, Farewell.
Michel de MontaigneWhoever will imagine a perpetual confession of ignorance, a judgment without leaning or inclination, on any occasion whatever, hasa conception of Pyrrhonism.
Michel de MontaigneThose who make a practice of comparing human actions are never so perplexed as when they try to see them as a whole and in the same light; for they commonly contradict each other so strangely that it seems impossible that they have come from the same shop.
Michel de Montaigne