Authors:

Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 13

All Quotes Acceptance Affection Age Ambition Anger Appearance Art Atheism Attitude Beauty Belief Birth Change Character Chastity Children Communication Confidence Conscience Cooking Corruption Country Criticism Curiosity Death Desire Difficulty Discipline Diversity Doubt Dying Earth Education Ethics Evil Exercise Experience Failing Fame Fashion Fear Feelings Flattery Food Freedom Friendship Funny Giving Glory God Goodness Grace Greatness Happiness Hate Hatred Heart Heaven History Home Honesty Honor House Human Nature Humanity Humility Hurt Husband Ignorance Imagination Injustice Inspirational Integrity Joy Judgement Judging Judgment Justice Knowledge Language Law Of Attraction Learning Liberty Life Loss Love Lying Madness Marriage Meditation Memories Modesty Morality Mountain Nature Obedience Office Pain Passion Past Perfection Philosophy Pleasure Poetry Positive Poverty Power Praise Pride Property Psychology Purpose Quality Reading Reality Reflection Religion Repentance Reputation Respect Revenge Risk Royalty Running School Science Self Esteem Self Respect Shame Simplicity Sin Skepticism Sleep Society Solitude Soul Sports Spring Study Stupidity Success Suffering Teaching Temperance Time Trade Tradition Tranquility Trust Truth Understanding Values Victory Virtue War Water Weakness Wealth Wife Wine Winning Wisdom Worry Writing Youth
The births of all things are weak and tender and therefore we should have our eyes intent on beginnings.

The births of all things are weak and tender and therefore we should have our eyes intent on beginnings.

Michel de Montaigne
New Beginnings, Eye, Should Have
Michel de Montaigne, Charles Cotton, William Carew Hazlitt (2012). “Michel de Montaigne: Selected Essays”, p.202, Courier Corporation

Decency, not to dare to do that in public which it is decent enough to do in private.

Michel de Montaigne
Enough, Dare, Decent
Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.613, 谷月社

It is far more probable that our senses should deceive us, than that an old woman should be carried up a chimney on a broom stick; and that it is far less astonishing that witnesses should lie, than that witches should perform the acts that were alleged.

Michel de Montaigne
Lying, Atheism, Sticks

For a desperate disease a desperate cure.

Michel de Montaigne
Disease, Desperate, Cures
Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.382, 谷月社

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
Travel, School, Order

We cannot be held to what is beyond our strength and means; for at times the accomplishment and execution may not be in our power, and indeed there is nothing really in our own power except the will: on this are necessarily based and founded all the principles that regulate the duty of man.

Michel de Montaigne
Mean, Men, Principles

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
Mother, Art, Powerful
Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.152, Stanford University Press

Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.

Michel de Montaigne
Judgement, Can Do
Michel de Montaigne (1991). “The essays of Michel de Montaigne”, Lane, Allen

Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones.

Michel de Montaigne
Men, Self, Certain

Our wisdom and deliberation for the most part follow the lead of chance.

Michel de Montaigne
Wisdom, Chance, Deliberation
Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”

We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn.

Michel de Montaigne
Believe, Knows
"The Complete Works of Michael de Montaigne" edited by William Carew Hazlitt, (p. 289), 1877.

Why did I love her? Because it was her; because it was me.

Michel de Montaigne
Love, Heart

Pride dwells in the thought; the tongue can have but a very little share in it.

Michel de Montaigne
Pride, Littles, Tongue
Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.410, 谷月社

As for our pupils talk, let his virtue and his sense of right and wrong shine through it and have no guide but reason. Make him understand that confessing an error which he discovers in his own argument even when he alone has noticed it is an act of justice and integrity, which are the main qualities he pursues; stubbornness and rancour are vulgar qualities, visible in common souls whereas to think again, to change one's mind and to give up a bad case on the heat of the argument are rare qualities showing strength and wisdom.

Michel de Montaigne
Giving Up, Integrity, Educational

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.

Michel de Montaigne
War, Equality, Soul
"Essais" by Michel de Montaigne, Book II, Ch. 12, 1595.

Intemperance is the plaque of sensuality, and temperance is not its bane but its seasoning.

Michel de Montaigne
Sensuality, Temperance, Seasoning

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
Fear, Passion, World
Michel de Montaigne (1853). “The Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy. With Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices &c., &c”, p.24

Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.

Michel de Montaigne
Fancy, Way, Repentance
Michel de Montaigne, Bayle St. John (1866). “Essays [tr. by Cotton”, p.68

Fear sometimes adds wings to the heels, and sometimes nails them to the ground, and fetters them from moving.

Michel de Montaigne
Fear, Moving, Wings
Michel de Montaigne (1856). “The Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy”, p.50

In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.

Michel de Montaigne
Memories, Educational, Book
Michel de Montaigne (1991). “The essays of Michel de Montaigne”, Lane, Allen

It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.

Michel de Montaigne
Children, Playing Games, Serious
Essais bk. 1, ch. 23 (1580)

For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and the grave; in bed, beauty before goodness.

Michel de Montaigne
Witty, Bed, Tables
Michel de Montaigne (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)”, p.397, Delphi Classics

He whose mouth is out of taste says the wine is flat.

Michel de Montaigne
Wine, Mouths, Taste
Michel de Montaigne (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)”, p.838, Delphi Classics

The bees pillage the flowers here and there but they make honey of them which is all their own; it is no longer thyme or marjolaine: so the pieces borrowed from others he will transform and mix up into a work all his own.

Michel de Montaigne
Flower, Here And There, Thyme
"Essays", Book I, Chapter XXV, as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, p. 598-600, 1922.

Aesop, that great man, saw his master making water as he walked. "What!" he said, "Must we void ourselves as we run?" Use our timeas best we may, yet a great part of it will still be idly and ill spent.

Michel de Montaigne
Running, Time, Men

You May Also Like: