The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 14
by Michel de Montaigne

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 14

Author: Michel de Montaigne

Release Date: September 17, 2006 [EBook #3594]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE, VOLUME 14 ***

Produced by David Widger

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazilitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 14.

I. Of Profit and Honesty.
II. Of Repentance.
III. Of Three Commerces.
IV. Of Diversion.

ESSAYS OF MONTAIGNE

BOOK THE THIRD

CHAPTER I

OF PROFIT AND HONESTY

No man is free from speaking foolish things; but the worst on't is, when
a man labours to play the fool:

"Nae iste magno conatu magnas nugas dixerit."

["Truly he, with a great effort will shortly say a mighty trifle."
---Terence, Heaut., act iii., s. 4.]

This does not concern me; mine slip from me with as little care as they
are of little value, and 'tis the better for them. I would presently
part with them for what they are worth, and neither buy nor sell them,
but as they weigh. I speak on paper, as I do to the first person I meet;
and that this is true, observe what follows.

To whom ought not treachery to be hateful, when Tiberius refused it in a
thing of so great importance to him? He had word sent him from Germany
that if he thought fit, they would rid him of Arminius by poison: this
was the most potent enemy the Romans had, who had defeated them so
ignominiously under Varus, and who alone prevented their aggrandisement
in those parts.

He returned answer, "that the people of Rome were wont to revenge
themselves of their enemies by open ways, and with their swords in their
hands, and not clandestinely and by fraud": wherein he quitted the
profitable for the honest. You will tell me that he was a braggadocio; I
believe so too: and 'tis no great miracle in men of his profession. But
the acknowledgment of virtue is not less valid in the mouth of him who
hates it, forasmuch as truth forces it from him, and if he