“In books, I look only for the pleasure of honest entertainment; or, if I study, the only learning I look for is that which tells me how to know myself, and teaches me how to die well, and to love well.”

“When I meet with difficulties in my reading, I do not bite my nails over them; after making one or two attempts, I give them up. If I were to sit down to them, I should be wasting myself and my time; my mind works at the first leap.”

“What I do not see immediately, I see even less by persisting. Without lightness, I achieve nothing; application and over-serious effort confuse, depress, and weary my brain.”

_____ Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)

_____Curated by Dennis Mellersh:

Dennis Mellersh Content Journalist

*** Montaigne quotations are from Montaigne Essays, translated with an Introductioin by J.M. Cohen, Penguin Classics, Penguin Books, Baltimore, Maryland, 1971