Montaigne Quotes

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Quotes About Montaigne

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We are nearer neighbors to ourselves than the whiteness of snow or the weight of stones are to us: if man does not know himself, how should he know his functions and powers? ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Every day I hear stupid people say things that are not stupid. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Whatever is preached to us, and whatever we learn, we should still remember that it is man that gives, and man that receives; it is a mortal hand that presents it to us, it is a mortal hand that accepts it. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
We wake sleeping, and sleep waking. I do not see so clearly in my sleep; but as to my being awake, I never found it clear enough and free from clouds. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times
in his life he might not lawfully be hanged. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Their [the Skeptics'] way of speaking is: "I settle nothing ... I do not understand it ... Nothing seems true that may not seem false." Their sacramental word is ... , which is to say, I suspend my judgment. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Don't be afraid to say what you are not afraid to think ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
The customs and practices of life in society sweep us along. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Life versus Death becomes, as Montaigne pointed out, Old Age versus Death. ~ Julian Barnes
Montaigne quotes by Julian Barnes
Whenever a new finding is reported to the world people say - It is probably not true. Later on, when the reliability of a new finding has been fully confirmed, people say - OK, it may be true but it has no real significance. At last, when even the significance of the finding is obvious to everybody, people say - Well, it might have some significance, but the idea is not new. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
This great world of ours is the looking-glass in which we must gaze to come to know ourselves from the right slant. Michel de Montaigne ~ Patti Miller
Montaigne quotes by Patti Miller
Is there anything so grave and serious as an ass? ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Who so hath his mind on taking, hath it no more on what he taketh. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Friendship is the highest degree of perfection in society. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
My trade and my art is living. He who forbids me to speak about it according to my sense, experience, and practice, let him orderthe architect to speak of buildings not according to himself but according to his neighbor; according to another man's knowledge, not according to his own. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
We easily enough confess in others an advantage of courage, strength, experience, activity, and beauty; but an advantage in judgment we yield to none. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Atheism being a proposition as unnatural as monstrous, difficult also and hard to establish in the human understanding, how arrogant soever, there are men enough seen, out of vanity and pride, to be the authors of extraordinary and reforming opinions, and outwardly to affect the profession of them; who, if they are such fools, have, nevertheless, not the power to plant them in their own conscience. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
It was truly very good reason that we should be beholden to God only, and to the favour of his grace, for the truth of so noble a belief, since from his sole bounty we receive the fruit of immortality, which consists in the enjoyment of eternal beatitude ... The more we give and confess to owe and render to God, we do it with the greater Christianity. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, it is but to run to my books; they presently fix me to them, and drive the other out of my thoughts, and do not mutiny to see that I have only recourse to them for want of other more, real, natural, and lively conveniences; they always receive me with the same kindness. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Were our pupil's disposition so bizarre that he would rather hear a tall story than the account of a great voyage or a wise discussion; that at the sound of a drum calling the youthful ardour of his comrades to arms he would turn aside for the drum of a troop of jugglers; that he would actually find it no more delightful and pleasant to return victorious covered in the dust of battle than after winning a prize for tennis or dancing; then I know no remedy except that his tutor should quickly strangle him when nobody is looking or apprentice him to make fairy-cakes in some goodly town - even if he were the heir of a Duke - following Plato's precept that functions should be allocated not according to the endowments of men's fathers but the endowments of their souls. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
As soon as women become ours we are no longer theirs. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
In order always to learn something from others (which is the finest school there can be), I observe in my travels this practice: I always steer those with whom I talk back to the things they know best. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, and with good reason; that passion alone, in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
I turn my gaze inward. I fix it there and keep it busy. I look inside myself. I continually observe myself. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Handling and use by able minds give value to a language, not so much by innovating as by filling it out with more vigorous and varied services, by stretching and bending it. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
In general I ask for books that make use of learning, not those that build it up. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
The most certain sign of wisdom is continual cheerfulness; her state is like the things above the moon, always clear and serene. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Since it was true that study, even when done properly, can only teach us what wisdom, right conduct and determination consist in, they wanted to put their children directly in touch with actual cases, teaching them not by hearsay but by actively assaying them, vigorously molding and forming them not merely by word and precept but chiefly by deeds and examples, so that wisdom should not be something which the soul knows but the soul's very essence and temperament, not something acquired but a natural property. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
The daughter-in-law of Pythagoras said that a woman who goes to bed with a man ought to lay aside her modesty with her skirt, and put it on again with her petticoat ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
All opinions in the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end, although they differ as to the means of attaining it. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Beauty is the true prerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that our sex, though naturally requiring another sort of feature, is never in its lustre but when puerile and beardless, confused and mixed with theirs. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Let every foot have its own shoe. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
We are entirely made up of bits and pieces, woven together so diversely and so shapelessly that each one of them pulls its own way at every moment. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
People try to get out of themselves and to escape from the man. This is folly; instead of transforming themselves into angels, they turn into beast; instead of lifting, they degrade themselves. These transcendental humors frighten me, like lofty and inaccessible heights. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Nor is it enough to toughen up his soul; you must also toughen up his muscles. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things might certainly conclude as to both the future and the past. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
It is not reasonable that art should win the place of honor over our great and powerful mother Nature. We have so overloaded the beauty and richness of her works by our inventions that we have quite smothered her. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Opinion is a powerful party, bold, and without measure. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Most of our occupations are low comedy ... We must play our part duly, but as the part of a borrowed character. Of the mask and appearance we must not make a real essence, nor of what is foreign what is our very own. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
A wellborn mind that is practiced in dealing with people makes itself thoroughly agreeable by itself. Art is nothing else but thelist and record of the productions of such minds. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live with purpose. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass? ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
[He who can describe how his heart is ablaze is burning on a small pyre] ~ Petrarch, Sonnet 137
(from Montaigne, On sadness) ~ Francesco Petrarca
Montaigne quotes by Francesco Petrarca
Most men are rich in borrowed sufficiency: a man may very well say a good thing, give a good answer, cite a good sentence, without at all seeing the force of either the one or the other. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
It is much more easy to accuse the one sex than to excuse the other. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Teach him a certain refinement in sorting out and selecting his arguments, with an affection for relevance and so for brevity. Above all let him be taught to throw down his arms and surrender to truth as soon as he perceives it, whether the truth is born at his rival's doing or within himself from some change in his ideas. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Lawyers and physicians are an ill provision for any country. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
The world always looks straights ahead; as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself; I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others ... they always go forward; as for me, I roll about in myself. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
To die is not to play a part in society; it is the act of a single person. Let us live and laugh among our friends; let us die and sulk among strangers. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Plato forbids children wine till eighteen years of age, and to get drunk till forty; but, after forty, gives them leave to please themselves, and to mix a little liberally in their feasts the influence of Dionysos, that good deity who restores to younger men their gaiety and to old men their youth...fit to inspire old men with mettle to divert themselves in dancing and music; things of great use, and that they dare not attempt when sober. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Saying is one thing, doing another. We must consider the sermon and the preacher distinctly and apart. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Intemperance is the plaque of sensuality, and temperance is not its bane but its seasoning. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Between Malraux, Balzac, and Montaigne, I choose Montaigne. Montaigne will survive all the others, because the essay, meaning direct communication between the writer and his reader, will outlast the novel, by at least a thousand years. ~ Gore Vidal
Montaigne quotes by Gore Vidal
He loves little who loves by rule. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
From books all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honourable pastime: or if I do study, I seek only that branch of learning which deals with knowing myself and which teaches me how to live and die well ... ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Praise is always pleasing, let it come from whom, or upon what account it will. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Nature has made us a present of a broad capacity for entertaining ourselves apart, and often calls us to do so, to teach us that we owe ourselves in part to society, but in the best part to ourselves. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
I'm quite influenced in this by one of my heroes, Montaigne, who thought a man's real task was to render as honest an account of himself as he could. ~ Robert Sheckley
Montaigne quotes by Robert Sheckley
It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing is more miserable or more proud than man. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
We may so seize on virtue, that if we embrace it with an overgreedy and violent desire, it may become vicious. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
A man should keep for himself a little back shop, all his own, quite unadulterated, in which he establishes his true freedom and chief place of seclusion and solitude. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in show, like the statue of a public place. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
The usefulness of living lies not in duration but in what you make of it. Some have lived long and lived little. See to it while you are still here. Whether you have lived enough depends not on a count of years but on your will. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Learning must not only lodge with us: we must marry her. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
To how many blockheads of my time has a cold and taciturn demeanor procured the credit of prudence and capacity! ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making them more great. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
I was not long since in a company where I was not who of my fraternity brought news of a kind of pills, by true account, composed of a hundred and odd several ingredients; whereat we laughed very heartily, and made ourselves good sport; for what rock so hard were able to resist the shock or withstand the force of so thick and numerous a battery? ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Every abridgement of a good book is a fool abridged. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
When a Roman was returning from a trip, he used to send someone ahead to let his wife know, so as not to surprise her in the act. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
As far as physicians go, chance is more valuable than knowledge. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
A man must learn to endure patiently what he cannot avoid conveniently. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Retire within yourselves; but first prepare yourselves to receive yourselves there. It would be madness to trust yourselves to yourselves if you do not know how to control yourselves. There are ways of failing in solitude as well as in company. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
I agree that we should work and prolong the functions of life as far as we can, and hope that Death may find me planting my cabbages, but indifferent to him and still more to the unfinished state of my garden. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Let the tutor make his charge pass everything through a sieve and lodge nothing in his head on mere authority and trust: let not Aristotle's principles be principles to him any more than those of the Stoics or Epicureans. Let this variety of ideas be set before him; he will choose if he can; if not, he will remain in doubt. Only the fools are certain and assured. For if he embraces Xenophon's and Plato's opinions by his own reasoning, they will no longer be theirs, they will be his. He who follows another follows nothing. He finds nothing; indeed he seeks nothing. We are not under a king; let each one claim his own freedom. Let him know that he knows, at least. He must imbibe their ways of thinking, not learn their precepts. And let him boldly forget, if he wants, where he got them, but let him know how to make them his own. Truth and reason are common to everyone, and no more belong to the man who first spoke them than to the man who says them later. It is no more according to Plato than according to me, since he and I understand and see it the same way. The bees plunder the flowers here and there, but afterward they make of them honey, which is all theirs; it is no longer thyme or marjoram. Even so with the pieces borrowed from others; he will transform and blend them to make a work of his own, to wit, his judgment. His education, work, and study aim only at forming this. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Habit is second nature. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Pride and curiosity are the two scourges of our souls. The latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved and undecided. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart. If I were pressed to say why I loved him, I feel that my only reply could be: Because it was he, because it was I. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
It is a small soul, buried beneath the weight of affairs, that does not know how to get clean away from them, that cannot put them aside and pick them up again. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
We are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
And I loathe people who find it harder to put up with a gown askew than with a soul askew and who judge a man by his bow, his bearing and his boots. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
True victory lies in your role in the conflict, not in coming through safely: it consists in the honour of battling bravely not battling through. ~ Montaigne, Michel De
Montaigne quotes by Montaigne, Michel De
I look upon the too good opinion that man has of himself, as the nursing mother of all false opinions, both public and private. ~ Michel De Montaigne
Montaigne quotes by Michel De Montaigne
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