Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 32

• 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

  Education, Book, Giving

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.297, Stanford University Press

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• He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Teach, Dies

  Essais bk. 1, ch. 20 (1580) See Porteus 2

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• 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

  Education, World, Speech

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.392, Stanford University Press

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• Necessity reconciles and brings men together; and this accidental connection afterward forms itself into laws.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Law, Society

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Essays:”, p.17, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• There is the name and the thing; the name is a sound which sets a mark on and denotes the thing. The name is no part of the thing nor of the substance; it is an extraneous piece added to the thing, and outside of it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Names, Sound, Substance

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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• The most unhappy and frail creatures are men and yet they are the proudest.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Unhappy, Frail

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• Everything must not always be said, for that would be folly.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Would Be, Said, Folly

  Michel de Montaigne (1925). “The Essays of Montaigne”

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• Were I to live my life over again, I should live it just as I have done. I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Life, Past, Complaining

  Michel de Montaigne (1872). “All the Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne”, p.678

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• It is much more easy to accuse the one sex than to excuse the other.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Sex, Men, Excuse

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

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• Wisdom has its excesses, and has no less need of moderation than folly.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Happiness, Wisdom, Excess

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Essays:”, p.3, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• Rash and incessant scolding runs into custom and renders itself despised.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Running, Scolding, Incessant

  Michel de Montaigne, Charles Cotton, William Carew Hazlitt (2012). “Michel de Montaigne: Selected Essays”, p.157, Courier Corporation

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• A tutor should not be continually thundering instruction into the ears of his pupil, as if he were pouring it through a funnel, but, after having put the lad, like a young horse, on a trot, before him, to observe his paces, and see what he is able to perform, should, according to the extent of his capacity, induce him to taste, to distinguish, and to find out things for himself; sometimes opening the way, at other times leaving it for him to open; and by abating or increasing his own pace, accommodate his precepts to the capacity of his pupil.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Horse, Teaching, Leaving

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• Authors communicate with the people by some special extrinsic mark; I am the first to do so by my entire being, as Michel de Montaigne.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Communication, Self, People

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

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• [I]n my country, when they would say a man has no sense, they say, such an one has no memory; and when I complain of the defect of mine, they do not believe me, and reprove me, as though I accused myself for a fool: not discerning the difference betwixt memory and understanding, which is to make matters still worse for me. But they do me wrong; for experience, rather, daily shows us, on the contrary, that a strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Country, Strong, Memories

  Michel de Montaigne (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)”, p.239, Delphi Classics

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• Oh, a friend! How true is that old saying, that the enjoyment of one is sweeter and more necessary than that of the elements of water and fire!

  Michel de Montaigne

  Love, Friendship, Fire

  Michel de Montaigne (2003). “The Complete Works: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters”, Everyman's Library

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• Few men are admired by their servants.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Admiration, Servant

  "Essais". Book by Michel de Montaigne, Book III, ch. 2, "Of Repentance", c. 1592.

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• Experience teaches that a strong memory is generally joined to a weak judgment.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Strong, Memories, Judgment

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• What kind of truth is it which has these mountains as its boundary and is a lie beyond them?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Lying, Mountain, Kind

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• Nature has with a Motherly Tenderness observed this, that the Action she has enjoyned us for our Necessity should be also pleasant to us, and invites us to them, not only by Reason, but also by Appetite: and ’tis Injustice to infringe her Laws.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Nature, Law, Action

  Michel de Montaigne (1947). “Essays of Michel de Montaigne”

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• The world is but a perennial movement. All things in it are in constant motion-the earth, the rocks of the Caucasus, the pyramids of Egypt-both with the common motion and with their own.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Rocks, Egypt, Pyramids

  Michel de Montaigne (2003). “The Complete Works: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters”, Everyman's Library

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• True it is that she who escapeth safe and unpolluted from out the school of freedom, giveth more confidence of herself than she who comet sound out of the school of severity and restraint.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Freedom, School, Self Confidence

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• Fortune does us neither good nor hurt; she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases; being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Hurt, Soul, Mistress

  Michel de Montaigne, William Hazlitt (1860). “The Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy”, p.145

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• We imagine much more appropriately an artisan on his toilet seat or on his wife than a great president, venerable by his demeanorand his ability. It seems to us that they do not stoop from their lofty thrones even to live.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Imagination, Wife, President

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.615, Stanford University Press

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• Example is a bright looking-glass, universal and for all shapes to look into.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Glasses, Example, Looks

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• As by some might be saide of me: that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange floures, and have put nothing of mine unto it, but the thred to binde them. Certes, I have given unto publike opinion, that these borrowed ornaments accompany me; but I meane not they should cover or hide me.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Ornaments, Might, Opinion

  Michel de Montaigne (1928). “The Essayes of Michel, Lord of Montaigne”

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