Quotes & Sayings About Montaigne

I determine nothing; I do not comprehend things; I suspend judgment; I examine. — Michel De Montaigne

Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly. — Michel De Montaigne

Our speech has its weaknesses and its defects, like all the rest. Most of the occasions for the troubles of the world are grammatical. — Michel De Montaigne

Examples teach us that in military affairs, and all others of a like nature, study is apt to enervate and relax the courage of man, rather than to give strength and energy to the mind. — Michel De Montaigne

Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive and little instructed, make good Christians. — 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

I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head. — 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

There is no virtue which does not rejoice a well-descended nature; there is a kind of I know not what congratulation in well-doing, that gives us an inward satisfaction, and a certain generous boldness that accompanies a good conscience. — Michel De Montaigne

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand. — Michel De Montaigne

A man must either imitate the vicious or hate them. — Michel De Montaigne

For there is no air that men so greedily draw in, that diffuses itself so soon, and that penetrates so deep as that of license. — Michel De Montaigne

Lovers are angry, reconciled, entreat, thank, appoint, and finally speak all things, by their. — Michel De Montaigne

Scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and the one nearest at hand. — Michel De Montaigne

We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game. — Michel De Montaigne

It is a human tendency "to measure truth and error by our capacity." — Michel De Montaigne

Certainly man is a remarkably vain, variable, and elusive subject.10 It is hard to base any constant, uniform judgment upon him. — Michel De Montaigne

Our libraries are so to speak prisons where we've locked up our intellectual giants, naturally Kant has been put in solitary confinement, like Nietzsche, like Schopenhauer, like Pascal, like Voltaire, like Montaigne, all the real giants have been put in solitary confinement, all the others in mass confinement, but everyone for ever and ever, my friend, for all time and unto eternity, that's the truth. — Thomas Bernhard

Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice. — Michel De Montaigne

My appetite comes to me while eating. — Michel De Montaigne

Example is a bright looking-glass, universal and for all shapes to look into. — Michel De Montaigne

It is putting a very high price on one's conjectures to have someone roasted alive on their account. — Michel De Montaigne

What a wonderful thing it is that drop of seed, from which we are produced, bears in itself the impressions, not only of the bodily shape, but of the thoughts and inclinations of our fathers! — 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

The wise man should withdraw his soul within, out of the crowd, and keep it in freedom and power to judge things freely; but as for externals, he should wholly follow the accepted fashions and forms. — Michel De Montaigne

In love, 'tis no other than frantic desire for that which flies from us. — Michel De Montaigne

Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows. — Michel De Montaigne

We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany. — Michel De Montaigne

The worthiest man to be known, and for a pattern to be presented to the world, he is the man of whom we have most certain knowledge. He hath been declared and enlightened by the most clear-seeing men that ever were; the testimonies we have of him are in faithfulness and sufficiency most admirable. — Michel De Montaigne

The man who thinks he knows does not yet know what knowing is — Michel De Montaigne

As great enmities spring from great friendships, and mortal distempers from vigorous health, so do the most surprising and the wildest frenzies from the high and lively agitations of our souls. — Michel De Montaigne

Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages. — Michel De Montaigne

Experience has further taught me this, that we ruin ourselves by impatience. — Michel De Montaigne

A man must live in the world and make the best of it, such as it is. — Michel De Montaigne

Not because Socrates said so, ... I look upon all men as my compatriots. — Michel De Montaigne

Marriage has, for its share, usefulness, justice, honour, and constancy; a stale but more durable pleasure. Love is grounded on pleasure alone, and it is indeed more gratifying to the senses, keener and more acute; a pleasure stirred and kept alive by difficulties. There must be a sting and a smart in it. It ceases to be love if it has no shafts and no fire. — Michel De Montaigne

Though we may be learned by another's knowledge, we can never be wise but by our own experience. — Michel De Montaigne

Montaigne is wrong in declaring that custom ought to be followed simply because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just. — Blaise Pascal

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

There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience ... These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant; and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us; it is the only payment that can never fail. On Repentance — Michel De Montaigne

Plenty and indigence depend upon the opinion every one has of them; and riches, like glory of health, have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleaded to lend them. — Michel De Montaigne

For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits. — Michel De Montaigne

I could recite you the whole of Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Titus Livius, Tacitus, Strada, Jornandes, Dante, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Machiavelli, and Bossuet. I name only the most important." "You — Alexandre Dumas

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

In my youth I studied for ostentation; later, a little to gain wisdom; now, for recreation; never for gain. — Michel De Montaigne

All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty and good-nature — Michel De Montaigne

There is no so wretched and coarse a soul wherein some particular faculty is not seen to shine. — Michel De Montaigne

Every one of us is a hodge-podge, so shapeless and diverse in structure that each piece, each moment, plays its own game. And there is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others. I — Michel De Montaigne

If not for that of conscience, yet at least for ambition's sake, let us reject ambition, let us disdain that thirst of honor and renown, so low and mendicant; that it makes us beg it of all sorts of people. — Michel De Montaigne

There are few men who dare to publish to the world the prayers they make to Almighty God. — Michel De Montaigne

To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death ... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere."
"To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. — Michel De Montaigne

Man will rise, if God by exception lends him a hand; he will rise by abandoning and renouncing his own means, and letting himselfbe raised and uplifted by purely celestial means. — Michel De Montaigne

I fear only that which I love, says man, according to Montaigne. Woman replies: I love only that which I fear. — Jose Bergamin

Whom conscience, ne'er asleep, Wounds with incessant strokes, not loud, but deep. — Michel De Montaigne

Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm or a flea and yet will create Gods by the dozen! — Michel De Montaigne

Whatever I may be, I want to be elsewhere than on paper. My art and my industry have been employed in making myself good for something; my studies, in teaching me to do, not to write. I have put all my efforts into forming my life. That is my trade and my work. — Michel De Montaigne

And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets? — Michel De Montaigne

If my intentions were not to be read in my eyes and voice, I should not have survived so long without quarrels and without harm, seeing the indiscreet freedom with which I say, right or wrong, whatever comes into my head. — Michel De Montaigne

Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves with railing against it. — Michel De Montaigne

Every one is well or ill at ease, according as he finds himself! not he whom the world believes, but he who believes himself to be so, is content; and in him alone belief gives itself being and reality — Michel De Montaigne

No pleasure is fully delightful without communications, and no delight absolute except imparted. — Michel De Montaigne

The recognition of virtue is not less valuable from the lips of the man who hates it, since truth forces him to acknowledge it; and though he may be unwilling to take it into his inmost soul, he at least decks himself out in its trappings. — Michel De Montaigne

Wisdom has its excesses, and has no less need of moderation than folly. — Michel De Montaigne

By travelling across frontiers, on horseback and in the imagination, Montaigne invited us to to exchange local prejudices and the self division they induced for less constraining identities as citizens of the world. — Alain De Botton

The relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them. — Michel De Montaigne

Death pays all debts. — Michel De Montaigne

The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write. — Michel De Montaigne

The easy, gentle, and sloping path ... is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road. — 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

There is a certain consideration, and a general duty of humanity, that binds us not only to the animals, which have life and feeling, but even to the trees and plants. We owe justice to people, and kindness and benevolence to all other creatures who may be susceptible of it. There is some intercourse between them and us, and some mutual obligation. — Michel De Montaigne

True freedom is to have power over oneself for everything. — Michel De Montaigne

I seek in books only to give myself pleasure by honest amusement; or if I study, I seek only the learning that treats of the knowledge of myself and instructs me in how to die well and live well. — Michel De Montaigne

Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity. — Michel De Montaigne

To know much is often the cause of doubting more. — Michel De Montaigne

We are never at home, we are always beyond. Fear, desire, hope, project us toward the future and steal from us the consideration of what is, to busy us with what will be, even when we shall no longer be."
-from "Our feelings reach out beyond us — Michel De Montaigne

I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more willfully obstinate. — Michel De Montaigne

No spirited mind remains within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength; it has impulses beyond its power of achievement. — Michel De Montaigne

Montaigne [puts] not self-satisfied understanding but a consciousness astonished at itself at the core of human existence. — Maurice Merleau Ponty

The rise of the buffered identity has been accompanied by an interiorization; that is, not only the Inner/Outer distinction, that between Mind and World as separate loci, which is central to the buffer itself; and not only the development of this Inner/Outer distinction in a whole range of epistemological theories of a mediational type from Descartes to Rorty;' but also the growth of a rich vocabulary of interiority, an inner realm of thought and feeling to be explored. This frontier of self-exploration has grown, through various spiritual disciplines of self-examination, through Montaigne, the development of the modern novel, the rise of Romanticism, the ethic of authenticity, to the point where we now conceive of ourselves as
having inner depths. — Charles Taylor

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

To understand the essence and workings of insanity, Gallus Vibius strained his mind so that he tore his judgment from its seat and could never get it back again: he could boast he became mad through wisdom.1 — Michel De Montaigne

Give me the provisions and whole apparatus of a kitchen, and I would starve. — Michel De Montaigne

Just as in habiliments it is a sign of weakness to wish to make oneself noticeable by some peculiar and unaccustomed fashion, so, in language, the quest for new-fangled phrases and little-known words comes from a puerile and pedantic ambition. — Michel De Montaigne

There is no doubt that Greek and Latin are great and handsome ornaments, but we buy them too dear. — Michel De Montaigne

The knowledge of courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study. It is like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and an inclination to love one another at the first sight. — Michel De Montaigne

The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles. — Michel De Montaigne

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

The property of Man's wit to act readily and quickly, while the property of the judgement is to be slow and poised. — Michel De Montaigne

To smell, though well, is to stink. — Michel De Montaigne

All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed. — Michel De Montaigne

The sage says that all that is under heaven incurs the same law and the same fate. — Michel De Montaigne

In the narrative of his third voyage Columbus wrote: "For I believe that the earthly Paradise lies here, which no one can enter except by God's leave." As for the people of this land, Peter Martyr would write as early as 1505: "They seem to live in that golden world of which old writers speak so much, wherein men lived simply and innocently without enforcement of laws, without quarreling, judges, or libels, content only to satisfy nature." Or as the ever present Montaigne would write: "In my opinion, what we actually see in these nations not only surpasses all the pictures which the poets have drawn of the Golden Age, and all their inventions representing the then happy state of mankind, but also the conception and desire of philosophy itself. — Paul Auster

We seem ambitious God's whole work to undo ... With new diseases on ourselves we war, And with new physic, a worse engine far. — Michel De Montaigne

That it was an advantage to him to be interrupted in speaking, and that his adversaries were afraid to nettle him, lest his anger should redouble his eloquence. — Michel De Montaigne

I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray ... I am myself the matter of my book. — Michel De Montaigne

Our own peculiar human condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh. — Michel De Montaigne

Any time and any place can be used to study: his room, a garden, is table, his bed; when alone or in company; morning and evening. His chief study will be Philosophy, that Former of good judgement and character who is privileged to be concerned with everything. — Michel De Montaigne

We are born to inquire after truth; it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge. — Michel De Montaigne

Old age is a lease nature only signs as a particular favor, and it may be, to one, only in the space of two or three ages; and then with a pass to boot, to carry him through, all the traverses and difficulties she has strewed in the way of his long career. — Michel De Montaigne

Neither good nor ill is done to us by Fortune: she merely offers us the matter and the seeds: our soul, more powerful than she is, can mould it or sow them as she pleases, being the only cause and mistress of our happy state or our unhappiness. — Michel De Montaigne