“Amongst so many borrowed things, I am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.”

— Michel De Montaigne , book Essays

Book III, Ch. 12. Of Physiognomy
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

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Michel De Montaigne 264

(1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, … 1533–1592

Nick Drake (poet) (1961) British writer

ibid
The Rahotep series, Book 2: Tutankhamun
Context: Be careful, Rahotep, I know these writers, they say “borrow” when they mean “steal.” You will soon read your words coming back to you on some privately circulated scroll of new verse.

“So please don't think that I am renouncing anything, I am reasonably faithful in my unfaithfulness and though I have changed, I am the same, and what preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way, how can I become more knowledgeable and study some subject or other in depth?”

Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

1880s, 1880, Letter to Theo (Cuesmes, July 1880)
Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
Context: So please don't think that I am renouncing anything, I am reasonably faithful in my unfaithfulness and though I have changed, I am the same, and what preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way, how can I become more knowledgeable and study some subject or other in depth? That is what keeps preying on my mind, you see, and then one feels imprisoned by poverty, barred from taking part in this or that project and all sorts of necessities are out of one's reach. As a result one cannot rid oneself of melancholy, one feels emptiness where there might have been friendship and sublime and genuine affection, and one feels dreadful disappointment gnawing at one's spiritual energy, fate seems to stand in the way of affection or one feels a wave of disgust welling up inside. And then one says “How long, my God!”

“I am glad to learn that the Parliament Bill has been passed for the Darlington Railway. I am much obliged by the favourable sentiments you express towards me, and shall be happy if I can be of service in carrying into execution your plans.”

George Stephenson (1781–1848) English civil engineer and mechanical engineer

Letter to Edward Pease (1821-04-28)

“There are a lot of things a person with two hands couldn't steal," Eddis said.
"So?"
"If it's impossible to steal them with two hands, it's no more impossible to steal them with one. Steal peace, Eugenides. Steal me some time.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Queen of Attolia

Source: The Queen of Attolia

“When I am giving the relation of a thing, remember to abstain from altering either in the matter or manner of speaking, so much, as that, if every one, afterwards, should alter as much, it would at last come to be properly false.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Diary (7 July 1724).

“I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book II, Ch. 16
Attributed

“I can get caught in many things but there is one thing I will never get caught in, and that is acting - because I don't act. On screen I am like I am in real life.”

Salman Khan (1965) Indian film actor

Quotes By Salman

“Anita – I am so glad I'm out here – I can't tell you how much I like it. I like the plains – and I like the work [her painting] – everything is so ridiculously new – and there is something about it that just makes you glad you're living here – You understand – there is nothing here – so maybe there is something wrong with me that I am liking it so much.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Canyon, Texas, (September, 1916), p. 187
1910s, Letters to Anita Pollitzer' (1916)

“One can begin so many things with a new person! - even begin to be a better man.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch

“Let love steal in disguised as friendship.”
Intret amicitiae nomine tectus amor.

Ovid book Ars amatoria

Book I, line 720; translated by J. Lewis May in The Love Books of Ovid, 1930
Variant translation: Love will enter cloaked in friendship's name.
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)

“Amongst so many borrowed things, I am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.”

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