Essays (tr. Charles Cotton, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1877)

The book opens with

Learning to die is learning to be free; whoever has learned to die has unlearned servitude

Their wordsWhere death waits for us is uncertain; let us look for him everywhere. The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learned to die has unlearned to serve.

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Every claim below was made in this book, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The book prints chapter headings its extracted text does not preserve, so the claims below are in the book's order but not grouped. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Learning to die is learning to be free; whoever has learned to die has unlearned servitude

Their wordsWhere death waits for us is uncertain; let us look for him everywhere. The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learned to die has unlearned to serve.
Our reading
People call barbarous whatever is not customary in their own country

Their wordsNow, to return to my subject, I find that there is nothing barbarous and savage in this nation, by anything that I can gather, excepting, that every one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.
Our reading
The greatest thing in the world is for a person to know that they belong to themselves

Their wordsThe greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is his own.
Our reading
Cruelty is the most extreme of all vices

Their wordsAmongst other vices, I mortally hate cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the very extreme of all vices: nay, with so much tenderness that I cannot see a chicken’s neck pulled off without trouble, and cannot without impatience endure the cry of a hare in my dog’s teeth, though the chase be a violent pleasure.
Our reading
A person playing with a cat cannot know whether they amuse the cat more than it amuses them

Their wordsWhen I play with my cat who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me? We mutually divert one another with our play.
Our reading
Moral philosophy applies as well to an ordinary private life as to a grand one, since every person carries the whole human condition

Their wordsI propose a life ordinary and without lustre: ‘tis all one; all moral philosophy may as well be applied to a common and private life, as to one of richer composition: every man carries the entire form of human condition.
Our reading
No desire is more natural than the desire for knowledge

Their wordsThere is no desire more natural than that of knowledge.
Our reading
Even on the highest throne a person is only sitting on their own backside; the finest lives keep to the common human model

Their words‘Tis to much purpose to go upon stilts, for, when upon stilts, we must yet walk with our legs; and when seated upon the most elevated throne in the world, we are but seated upon our breech. The fairest lives, in my opinion, are those which regularly accommodate themselves to the common and human model without miracle, without extravagance.

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