Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 23

• Is it not enough to make me come back to life out of spite, to have someone who spat in my face while I existed come and rub my feet when I am beginning to exist no longer?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Feet, Hypocrisy, Faces

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.563, Stanford University Press

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• He loves little who loves by rule.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Life, Littles

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• Seeing that the Senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must have recourse to Reason; there is no reason but must be built upon another reason: so here we are retreating backwards to infinity.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Philosophy, Medicine, Psychology

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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• He who remembers the evils he has undergone, and those that have threatened him, and the slight causes that have changed him from one state to another, prepares himself in that way for future changes and for recognizing his condition. The life of Caesar has no more to show us than our own; an emperor's or an ordinary man's, it is still a life subject to all human accidents.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Evil, Ordinary

  Michel de Montaigne (1980). “Essays”

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• There are few things on which we can pass a sincere judgement, because there are few things in which we have not, in one way or another, a particular interest.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Judgement, Way, Judgment

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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

  Michel de Montaigne

  Ambition, Support, Hatred

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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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• No profession or occupation is more pleasing than the military; a profession or exercise both noble in execution (for the strongest, most generous and proudest of all virtues is true valor) and noble in its cause. No utility either more just or universal than the protection of the repose or defense of the greatness of one's country. The company and daily conversation of so many noble, young and active men cannot but be well-pleasing to you.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Country, Military, Exercise

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

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• Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Life, Death, Benefits

  "Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays".

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• Every abridgement of a good book is a fool abridged.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Book, Fool, Good Book

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• What a man hates, he takes seriously.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Hate, Men

  Michel de Montaigne, John Michael Cohen (1959). “Essays”, Penguin Classics

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• Persons of mean understandings, not so inquisitive, nor so well instructed, are made good Christians, and by reverence and obedience, implicity believe, and abide by their belief.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Christian, Believe, Mean

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• Whom conscience, ne'er asleep, Wounds with incessant strokes, not loud, but deep.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Incessant, Loud, Strokes

  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.193

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