Category: Translations

I cannot understand how we establish the length of our lives. I see that the wise greatly shorten it at the expense of common opinion. How, young Cato said to those who wanted to prevent him from killing himself, am I at this age to be reproached for abandoning life too soon? He was only…

I propose formless and unresolved fantasies, as do those who publish dubious questions, to be debated in schools: not to establish the truth, but to seek it. And I submit them to the judgment of those who have the task of regulating not only my actions and my writings, but also my thoughts. Both condemnation…

Some people, like Alexander the Great, believe that their sweat spreads a sweet smell, due to some rare and extraordinary complexion, the cause of which Plutarch and others seek. But the common way of the bodies is on the contrary; and the best condition they have is to be free of scent. The sweetness of…

There are those frivolous and vain subtleties, by means of which men sometimes seek recommendation: like poets who make entire works of verse beginning with the same letter: we see eggs, balls, wings, axes fashioned in ancient times by the Greeks with the measure of their verses, lengthening or shortening them, in such a way…

If we sometimes amused ourselves by considering ourselves, and the time we take to counter-regulate others and to recognize the things that are outside us, if we used it to examine ourselves, we would easily feel how all our structure is built of weak and failing parts. Is it not a singular testimony to imperfection,…

Attilius Regulus, general of the Roman army in Africa, in the midst of his glory and his victories against the Carthaginians, wrote to the public that a farmhand whom he had left alone in the management of his property, which was in total seven acres of land, had fled, having stolen his farming tools, and…

Judgment is useful to all subjects, and is mixed with everything. For this reason, in the trials I make of it here, I employ all sorts of opportunities. If it is a subject that I do not understand, I try it anyway, sounding the ford from afar; and then, finding it too deep for my…

I would gladly excuse our people for having no other patron and rule of perfection than their own morals and customs: for it is a common vice, not only of the vulgar, but of almost all men, to have their aim and their judgment based on the way in which they were born. I am…

Some might consider me a grammarian, having only ever learned languages by rote, and still knowing nothing of adjectives, conjunctions or the ablative. I seem to have heard that the Romans had horses they called funales or dextrarios, which were ridden in relays on the right or left, so as to take them all at…

This is just what the verse dictates: Wide is the range of words, on one side and the other. (Homer) it is indeed right to speak of everything, for and against. For example: Hannibal won, and then he did not know how to use his victorious fortune well, (Petrarch) Who wants to be part of…

The way in which our laws attempt to regulate the wasteful and vain expenditure on tables and clothing seems to be contrary to its purpose. The real way would be to make men despise gold and silk as vain and useless things; and we increase their honor and value, which is a very inept way…

Plutarch says somewhere that he finds no greater distance from best to best, as he finds from man to man. He speaks of the sufficiency of the soul and inner qualities. In truth, I find such a distance from Epaminundas, as I imagine him, to such a one as I know, I say capable of…

Of all the pipe dreams in the world, the most accepted and most universal is the concern for reputation and glory, which we espouse to the point of forsaking wealth, rest, life and health, which are very real and substantial, to follow this vain image and this simple voice which has neither body nor hold:…

One more point regarding the comparison of these couples. There are countless testimonies of an excessively ambitious nature in the writings of Cicero and Pliny (who, in my opinion, does not detract much from his uncle’s character): among other things, they ask the historians of their time, under the gaze of everyone, not to forget…

Let us leave aside this long comparison of solitary life to the active one; and as for this fine word with which ambition and avarice are covered: That we are not concerned with our own particular interests, but with the public interest, let us boldly refer to those who are in the know; and let…

When we come across the stories of Antigonus being very angry with his son for presenting him with the head of King Pyrrhus, his enemy, who had just been killed fighting against him, and that, having seen it, he began to cry very loudly; and that Duke René of Lorraine also mourned the death of…

I do not have this common error of judging others according to how I am. I readily believe various things about myself. To feel committed to a form, I do not oblige others to it, as the rest do; and believe and conceive a thousand contrary ways of life; and, contrary to the common, more…

Wherever I wish to go, I must break through some barrier of custom, so carefully has it bridled all our avenues. I wonder, in this chilly season, if the custom of going naked, recently found in these nations, is a custom forced by the warm temperature of the air, as we say of the Indians…

My late father, a man who was only helped by experience and natural, clear-cut judgment, once told me that he had wanted to set up towns in a certain designated place, to which those who needed something could go and register their business with an officer established for this purpose, such as: I am looking…

The inconstancy of fortune’s various sway means that it must present us with all kinds of faces. Is there any more express act of justice than this? The Duke of Valentinois, having resolved to poison Adrian, Cardinal de Cornete, with whom Pope Alexander the Sixth, his father, and he were to dine at the Vatican,…

I am willing to agree here with most of the ancient opinions: that it is better to die when there is more evil than good in living; and that to hold our life dear above our torment and inconvenience is to set ourselves against the laws of nature itself, as these old rules have it:…

The true field and subject of imposture remain elusive and unknown. All the more so because strangeness in the first place gives credit; and then, not being subject to our ordinary discourses, they show us the means to combat them. For this reason, said Plato, it is much easier to satisfy, speaking of the nature…

When King Pyrrhus passed through Italy, after he had recognized the order of the army that the Romans had sent out to meet him, he said, “I do not know what barbarians these are (for the Greeks call all foreign nations barbarians), but the disposition of this army that I see is not barbaric at…

As if we had a vile touch, we corrupt by our manner things which of themselves are beautiful and good. We can seize virtue in such a way that it becomes vicious, if we embrace it with a desire that is too strong and violent. Those who say that there is never any excess in…

Whoever chides us to stop gazing towards the future and asks that we stay rooted in the present, content with the here and now, not anticipating what is coming nor holding on to our past, these voices commit a common human error.  And that is, if we dare call an error something which nature makes…

A delightful gentleman, subject to bouts of gout, was urged by his doctors to give up the use of salted meats. He responded to them pleasantly that he needed something to blame for the torments of the illness, and that by shouting and cursing at the sausage, the beef tongue and the ham, he felt…

Lucius Marcius, Legate of the Romans, sowed seeds of agreement in the war against Perseus, King of Macedonia. Needing time to put his army in order, he gained from the sleeping King a truce for a few days, providing him the time and opportunity to re-arm, bringing Perseus to his final demise. And yet, elders…

Considering the way a painter I know goes about his business, I was tempted to follow him. He chooses the most beautiful place and middle of each wall, to house a painting elaborated with all his talents; and, having emptied it all around, he fills it with grotesques, which are fanciful paintings, having grace only…

I recently saw in my neighborhood of Mussidan that those forcibly dislodged by our army, and others of their party, cried out treason, because during the brokering of a peace agreement, while the cease fire was still in effect, they were surprised and smashed to pieces. This was an action that would not happen in…

When we first witness idle lands, they are rich and fertile, abound in a hundred thousand kinds of wild and useless herbs. To keep them fertile, they must be tended to and their seeds continually replanted. And we also witness women produce shapeless lumps and pieces of flesh all by themselves, but to produce offspring,…

No man is so evil that he should meddle with memory. For I recognize almost none in myself, and believe that there is no other in the world so monstrous in this failure. I have all my other faculties, vile and common. But in my lack of memory, I am singular and very rare, and…

Death, it is said, acquits us of all our obligations. This has been taken in various ways. King Henry VII of England made a deal with Dom Philip, Emperor Maximilian’s son, (or, to name him more honorably, father of the Emperor Charles V.) The agreement called for Philip to hand over the mortal enemy of…

I am most exempt from the casual display of this passion, and neither love nor esteem it. The world has taken upon itself to adorn it with special favor. They dress it up as wisdom, virtue, conscience: such a foolish and monstrous ornament. The Italians have, more appropriately, baptized the studied display of sorrow as…

I was astonished, my hair stood on end, and my voice caught in my throat. (Virgil) I am not a good naturalist (so they say) and hardly know by what means fear acts on us; but it is certainly a strange passion: and doctors say that there is none that so soon upsets our judgment….

Of course, the last day is always A man’s day to be awaited, and to be called blessed; No one should die before death, and the last funeral should be held. (Ovid) Children will know the story of King Croesus in this regard: who, having been captured by Cyrus and condemned to death, at the…

Cicero says that to philosophize is nothing other than to prepare for death. This is because study and contemplation in no way remove our soul from us, and delude it apart from the body, which is some learning and likeness of death; or else it is because all the wisdom and discourse of the world…

”A strong imagination creates the event” say the clerics. I am one of those who feel overwhelming strain on my imagination, galloping towards peril. Everyone is affected by these feelings sometimes, but my case takes steps beyond. The flood of feeling persists, and my art is to escape it, but not resist. My escape is…

The Athenian Demades condemned a man from his city, who made a business of selling the things necessary for burials, under the pretext that he demanded too much profit from them, and that this profit could not come to him without the death of many people. This judgment was poorly conceived, because all profit derives…

The original teller of this tale seems to have a strong grasp on the power of custom: a village woman, having learned to caress and carry a calf in her arms from the moment of its birth, and continually doing so, became habituated to the action, so that no matter how large the cow grew,…

The Grand Almoner of France Jacques Amiot, truly one of us, even though he was of foreign origin, once recited to me this story in honor of one of our princes: During our first troubles, at the siege of Rouen, this prince had been warned by the queen mother, of an attempt made on his…

“Never to all men were all graces granted.” (Étienne de la Boétie) Some have the ease and promptness that comes with the gift of eloquence. They can deliver speeches so comfortably that they are ready at a moment’s notice. For others, words come more deliberately. They never speak anything that has not been carefully thought…

I often grew tired, in my childhood, of seeing in Italian comedies pedants treated as buffoons. A Sorbonne magister is little more honorable among us. For, having been given up to their control and tutoring, what could I do less than be jealous of their reputation? I did my best to excuse them on the…

As for the oracles, it is certain in the era before the arrival of Jesus Christ, they had begun to lose their credit: for we see that Cicero takes pains to find the cause of their failure: Why are the oracles no longer published in this way at Delphi, not only in our time but…

To Madame Diane de Foix, Countess of Gurson. I never saw a father, however ill-tempered or hunchbacked his son might be, who failed to recognize him as his own son. So I too see, better than anyone else, that these brainchildren of mine are but the daydreams of a man who tasted the sciences only…

The law of resolve and constancy does not solely require us to protect ourselves, as far as we are able, from the evils and inconveniences that beset us, nor, consequently, to be afraid that they will take us by surprise. On the contrary, all honest means of protecting ourselves from harm are not only permitted,…

It is reasonable that we attribute the ease of believing and allowing oneself to be persuaded to simplicity and ignorance. I seem to have learned in the past that belief was like an impression made on our soul; and, the more it became softer and offered less resistance, the easier it was to impress something…

There is no subject so vain that does not deserve a place in this rhapsody. According to our customs, it would be a notable discourtesy to fail to find you at home, when someone has been advised to meet you there. Indeed, Queen Margaret of Navarre amended this rule, declaring it discourteous for a gentleman…

People, says an ancient Greek sentence of Epictetus, are tormented by their points of view about things, not the things themselves. We could find relief for our miserable human condition if we established this as a universal truth. If evils exist only in our perception, then we have the power to reframe and despise them,…

Valor has its limits. Like other virtues, once you cross the line, you find yourself on the train of vice. Through it, you can reach temerity, obstinacy and folly, if one does not know the limits well, and it is uncomfortable to tread that line. From this consideration arose the custom, which we have in…

I once heard that a prince and a very great captain held that a soldier could not be sentenced to death for cowardice of heart. At table, he was told the story of the Lord of Vervins, who was sentenced to death for surrendering Boulogne. In truth, it is right that a great difference be…

The most common way to soften the hearts of those we have offended, when they are hungry for revenge, is to elicit their mercy through commiseration. But sometimes the opposite approach, showing bravery and constancy, has the same effect. Edward, Prince of Wales, who ruled our Guienne for many years., had a character with many…

I observe this practice in my travels, in order to learn something through the communication of others (which is one of the most beautiful lessons that can be learned), I always allow the conversation to cover subjects that they know best. Let it be enough for the ferryman to talk about the winds, To the…