Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 12

• Gentleness and repose are paramount to everything else in woman.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Paramount, Repose, Gentleness

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• Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Honor, Persons, Loses

  Michel de Montaigne (1979). “Essays”

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• We are neither obstinately nor wilfully to oppose evils, nor truckle under them for want of courage, but that we are naturally to give way to them, according to their condition and our own, we ought to grant free passage to diseases; and I find they stay less with me who let them alone. And I have lost those which are reputed the most tenacious and obstinate of their own defervescence, without any help or art, and contrary to their rules. Let us a little permit nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Art, Giving, Evil

  Michel de Montaigne (1856). “The Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy”, p.531

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• We have more poets than judges and interpreters of poetry. It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one. There is, indeed, a certain low and moderate sort of poetry, that a man may well enough judge by certain rules of art; but the true, supreme, and divine poesy is equally above all rules and reason. And whoever discerns the beauty of it with the most assured and most steady sight sees no more than the quick reflection of a flash of lightning.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Art, Writing, Reflection

  Michel de Montaigne (1850). “Works, Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy: With Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices &c., &c”, p.126

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• Eloquence is an engine invented to manage and wield at will the fierce democracy, and, like medicine to the sick, is only employed in the paroxysms of a disordered state.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Medicine, Sick, Democracy

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• All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Looks, Opinion, Ought

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

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• If I were a maker of books I should compile a register, with comments, of different deaths. He who should teach people to die, would teach them to live.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Death, Book, People

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• Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Self, Arrogance

  Michel de Montaigne (1973). “Selections from the Essays”, Harlan Davidson

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• I am myself the matter of my book.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Book, Matter

  Essais "Au Lecteur" (1580)

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• The most certain sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Wisdom, Moon, States

  "The Works of Michael de Montaigne".

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• Malice sucks up the greatest part of its own venom, and poisons itself.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Poison, Venom, Malice

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.827, 谷月社

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• To philosophize is nothing else than to prepare oneself for death.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Death, Oneself

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• To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value, is pusillanimity and cowardice.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Speak Less, Pay

  Michel de Montaigne (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)”, p.614, Delphi Classics

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• I leaf through books, I do not study them. What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else's.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Book, Learning, Study

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.494, Stanford University Press

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• If health and a fair day smile upon me, I am a very good fellow; if a corn trouble my toe, I am sullen, out of humor, and inaccessible.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Corn, Toes, Sullen

  Michel de Montaigne (1908). “The Essays of Michel de Montaigne”

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• Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the extremest of all vices.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Hate, Vices, Judgment

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• It costs an unreasonable woman no more to pass over one reason than another; they cherish themselves most where they are most wrong.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Women, Cost, Cherish

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.425, 谷月社

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• Whether the events in our life are good or bad, greatly depends on the way we perceive them.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Attitude, Law Of Attraction, Events

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• It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Perfection, Divine, Enjoy

  "Complete Essays".

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• It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. A spirited mind never stops within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Mind, Spirited, Contractions

  Michel de Montaigne (1973). “Selections from the Essays”, Harlan Davidson

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• Adrian, the Emperor, exclaimed incessantly, when dying, "That the crowd of physicians had killed him."

  Michel de Montaigne

  Medicine, Dying, Physicians

  "Essays", Book II, Chapter XXXVII, as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, p. 502-04, 1922.

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• It has never occurred to me to wish for empire or royalty, nor for the eminence of those high and commanding fortunes. My aim lies not in that direction; I love myself too well.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Lying, Wish, I Love Myself

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• To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Book, Character, Winning

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.14, Stanford University Press

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• 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

  Wise, Fool, Made

  Michel de Montaigne (1872). “All the Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne”, p.741

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• Silence and modesty are very valuable qualities in conversation.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Silence, Quality, Modesty

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