“It (marriage) happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.”

Book III, Ch. 5
Essais (1595), Book III

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Michel De Montaigne264

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

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“It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book III, Ch. 5. Upon some Verses of Virgil
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“T is just like a summer bird-cage in a garden,—the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out.”

John Webster The White Devil

Act I, scene ii. Compare: "To public feasts, where meet a public rout,— Where they that are without would fain go in, And they that are within would fain go out", John Davies, Contention betwixt a Wife, etc.
The White Devil (1612)

“Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.”

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

Book III, Ch. 5
Attributed
Source: The Complete Essays

“such mad confidence within despair.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
Original: (60).

“If you are wise, mingle these two elements: do not hope without despair, or despair without hope.”
Si sapis, alterum alteri misce: nec speraveris sine desperatione nec desperaveris sine spe.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Alternate translation: Hope not without despair, despair not without hope. (translated by Zachariah Rush).
Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CIV: On Care of Health and Peace of Mind, Line 12