Montaigne, Michel de -- Essays, Book 3, ch. 8 (3.8), “Of the Art of Discussion [De l’art de conferer]” (1587) [tr. Screech (1987)]

Dave — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 21:52:13 +0000

Everyone’s shit smells good to himself.

[Stercus cuique suum bene olet.]

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 3, ch. 8 (3.8), “Of the Art of Discussion [De l’art de conferer]” (1587) [tr. Screech (1987)]
(Source)

Montaigne is recollecting an adage collected by Desiderius Erasmus in his Adagia (3.4.2, No. 2302). It's actually rendered there as Suus cuique crepitus bene olet. Erasmus maintains that the proverb is not meant literally, but metaphorically (that people value most things that are their own), though he does concede that people are more repulsed by others' excrement than their own.

Montaigne only presents the Latin, not a French translation (as is true with most of his Classical quotations). In context, he uses the phrase regarding how people criticize others for flaws that they, themselves, possess (and even consider virtuous, in their own cases).

I have also seen a version of this cited as an Icelandic proverb.

This essay (and passage) first appeared in the 2nd (1588) edition.

(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:

Ev’ry mans ordure well,
To his owne sense doth smell.
[tr. Florio (1603)]

To each one their own manure smells good.
[tr. Cotton/Hazlitt (1877)]

Every man's filth smells sweet to himself.
[tr. Ives (1925)]

Each man likes best the smell of his own dung.
[tr. Zeitlin (1934)]

Every man likes the smell of his own dung.
[tr. Frame (1943)]

Every man's filth smells sweet to him.
[tr. Cohen (1958)]

Everyone thinks his own fart smells sweet.
[tr. Drysdall (2001); of Erasmus]

Galbraith, John Kenneth -- “Recession Economics,” New York Review of Books (1982-02-04)

Dave — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:59:51 +0000

Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy — what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
“Recession Economics,” New York Review of Books (1982-02-04)
(Source)

WIST Quotations

Montaigne, Michel de -- Essays, Book 3, ch. 8 (3.8), “Of the Art of Discussion [De l’art de conferer]” (1587) [tr. Screech (1987)]

Galbraith, John Kenneth -- “Recession Economics,” New York Review of Books (1982-02-04)