“Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.”
Book III, Ch. 13
Attributed
Variant: Of all the infirmities we have, 'tis the most savage to despise our being. (Charles Cotton translation)
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Michel De Montaigne 264
(1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, … 1533–1592Related quotes

(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) ..ik heb tenminste de overtuiging van opregt te zijn en heb geen grooter afschuw dan van alle.. ..vreemdsoortige kunstuitingen [oa. van ] de ziekte van onzen tijd.
In a letter, 19 Nov. 1889; as cited in Willem Roelofs 1822-1897 De Adem der natuur, ed. Marjan van Heteren & Robert-Jan te Rijdt; Thoth, Bussum, 2006, p. 18 - ISBN13 * 978 90 6868 432 2
1880's

“The gods' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers, you know.”
Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Curse of Chalion (2000), p. 94

Source: Col. Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas (1836), Ch. 2
Context: In peace or in war I have stood by thy side —
My country, for thee I have lived, would have died!
But I am cast off, my career now is run,
And I wander abroad like the prodigal son —
Where the wild savage roves, and the broad prairies spread,
The fallen — despised — will again go ahead.

Source: Leopold II, Het hele Verhaal, Johan Op De Beeck Horizon, 2020 https://klara.be/leopold-ii-aflevering-6 ISBN 9789463962094 Stanley writes this on his first expidition commissioned by King Leopold II of Belgium after describing with horror the horrible scenes of atrocities and cannibalism that take place in Congo.

Part 2, Chapter 1 (pages 45-46)
Notes from Underground (1864)
Context: The characteristics of our "romantics" are absolutely and directly opposed to the transcendental European type, and no European standard can be applied to them. (Allow me to make use of this word "romantic" — an old-fashioned and much respected word which has done good service and is familiar to all.) The characteristics of our romantics are to understand everything, to see everything and to see it often incomparably more clearly than our most realistic minds see it; to refuse to accept anyone or anything, but at the same time not to despise anything; to give way, to yield, from policy; never to lose sight of a useful practical object (such as rent-free quarters at the government expense, pensions, decorations), to keep their eye on that object through all the enthusiasms and volumes of lyrical poems, and at the same time to preserve "the sublime and the beautiful" inviolate within them to the hour of their death, and to preserve themselves also, incidentally, like some precious jewel wrapped in cotton wool if only for the benefit of "the sublime and the beautiful." Our "romantic" is a man of great breadth and the greatest rogue of all our rogues, I assure you.... I can assure you from experience, indeed. Of course, that is, if he is intelligent. But what am I saying! The romantic is always intelligent, and I only meant to observe that although we have had foolish romantics they don't count, and they were only so because in the flower of their youth they degenerated into Germans, and to preserve their precious jewel more comfortably, settled somewhere out there — by preference in Weimar or the Black Forest.