Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 22

• We owe subjection and obedience to all our kings, whether good or bad, alike, for that has respect unto their office; but as to esteem and affection, these are only due to their virtue.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Kings, Office, Affection

  Michel de Montaigne (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)”, p.220, Delphi Classics

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• Children's games are hardly games. Children are never more serious than when they play.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Inspirational, Children, Kids

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• Hath God obliged himself not to exceed the bounds of our knowledge?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Obliged, Exceed, Bounds

  Michel de Montaigne (1964). “Selected essays of Montaigne: in the translation of John Florio”

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• It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Joy, Host, Stubbornness

  Michel de Montaigne (1995). “Four Essays”, Penguin Group USA

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• Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Taken, Learning, Men

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.110, Stanford University Press

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• If I am to serve as an instrument of deceit, at least let it be with a clear conscience. I do not want to be considered either so affectionate or so loyal a servant as to be found fit to betray anyone.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Deceit, Loyal, Want

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.603, Stanford University Press

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• The continuous work of our life is to build death.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Life Is, Our Lives

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• 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

  Life, Art, Knowledge

  Michel de Montaigne (1979). “Essays”

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• Experience stands on its own dunghill in medicine, and reason yields it place. Medicine has always professed experience to be the touchstone of its operations.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Yield, Medicine, Reason

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• All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty and good-nature

  Michel de Montaigne

  Honesty, Hurtful, Good Nature

  Michel de Montaigne (1800). “Essays, Selected from Montaigne: With a Sketch of the Life of the Author”, p.124

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• I don't break the law* made for crooks, when I take away my own property - thus I am not obliged to conform to the law made for murderers when I deprive myself of my own life.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Suicide, Law, Crooks

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• 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

  Nature, Kindness, Animal

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• Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at the expense of life.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Opinion, Enough, Force

  Michel de Montaigne, Bayle St. John (1866). “Essays [tr. by Cotton”, p.358

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• I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Believe, People, Tolerance

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Essays”

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• I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Innovation, Reason, Danger

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.86, Stanford University Press

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• Now, since our condition accommodates things to itself, and transforms them according to itself, we no longer know things in their reality; for nothing comes to us that is not altered and falsified by our Senses. When the compass, the square, and the rule are untrue, all the calculations drawn from them, all the buildings erected by their measure, are of necessity also defective and out of plumb. The uncertainty of our senses renders uncertain everything that they produce.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Philosophy, Reality, Squares

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• Have you known how to take rest? You have done more than he who hath taken empires and cities.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Taken, Cities, Done

  Michel de Montaigne (2014). “Shakespeare's Montaigne: The Florio Translation of the Essays, A Selection”, p.330, New York Review of Books

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• Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice; for indeed it seems we have no other test of truth and reason than the example and pattern of the opinions and customs of the country we live in

  Michel de Montaigne

  Country, Men, Practice

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

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• Ambition is not a vice of little people.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Inspirational, Ambition, People

  Michel de Montaigne (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)”, p.1269, Delphi Classics

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• The good, supreme, divine poetry is above the rules and reason. Whoever discerns its beauty with a firm, sedate gaze does not see it, any more than he sees the splendor of a lightning flash. It does not persuade our judgement, it ravishes and overwhelms it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Judgement, Lightning, Doe

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.171, Stanford University Press

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• Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Ambition, Support, Hatred

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• We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Understanding, Mind

  "Essais" by Michel de Montaigne, Book I, Ch. 25, 1595.

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• Necessity is a violent school-mistress.

  Michel de Montaigne

  School, Mistress, Violent

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.206, Stanford University Press

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• How many quarrels, and how important, has the doubt as to the meaning of this syllable "Hoc" produced for the world!

  Michel de Montaigne

  Doubt, Important, World

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• Perhaps it is not without reason that we attribute facility in belief and conviction to simplicity and ignorance; for it seems to me I once learned that belief was sort of an impression made on our mind, and that the softer it is the less resistant t.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Ignorance, Simplicity, Mind

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