Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 33

• Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy; research, the progress; ignorance, the end. There is, by heavens, a strong and generous kind of ignorance that yields nothing, for honour and courage, to knowledge: an ignorance to conceive which needs no less knowledge than to conceive knowledge.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Strong, Philosophy, Philosophical

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• How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Survival, Reputation

  Michel de Montaigne (1976). “The Complete Essays of Montaigne”

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• But as Nature is the best guide, teaching must be the development of natural inclinations, for which purpose the teacher must watch his pupil and listen to him, not continually bawl words into his ears as if pouring water into a funnel. Good teaching will come from a mind well made rather than well filled.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Teacher, Teaching, Water

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• It is indeed the boundary of life, beyond which we are not to pass; which the law of nature has pitched for a limit not to be exceeded.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Law, Age, Limits

  Michel de Montaigne (1853). “The Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy. With Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices &c., &c”, p.151

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• We must reserve a back shop all our own entirely free, in which to establish our real liberty and our principal retreat and solitude.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Real, Solitude, Liberty

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.177, Stanford University Press

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• Like the watermen who advance forward while they look backward.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Looks

  Michel de Montaigne (1759). “The Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne: Translated Into English”, p.8

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• Books are a languid pleasure.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Book, Pleasure

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• To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, it is but to run to my books; they presently fix me to them, and drive the other out of my thoughts, and do not mutiny to see that I have only recourse to them for want of other more, real, natural, and lively conveniences; they always receive me with the same kindness.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Running, Kindness, Real

  Michel de Montaigne (1866). “Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Journey Into Italy, and Letters”, p.93

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• Business in a certain sort of men is a mark of understanding, and they are honored for it. Their souls seek repose in agitation, as children do by being rocked in a cradle. They may pronounce themselves as serviceable to their friends as troublesome to themselves. No one distributes his money to others, but every one therein distributes his time and his life. There is nothing of which we are so prodigal as of those two things, of which to be thrifty would be both commendable and useful.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Business, Children, Men

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• The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learnt to die has forgot to serve.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Death, Liberty, Premeditation

  Michel de Montaigne, George Savile Marquis of Halifax (1743). “Montaigne's Essays in Three Books: With Notes and Quotations. And an Account of the Author's Life. With a Short Character of the Author and Translator”, p.82

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• But sure there is need of other remedies than dreaming, a weak contention of art against nature.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Dream, Art, Nature

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• I find no quality so easy for a man to counterfeit as devotion, though his life and manner are not conformable to it; the essence of it is abstruse and occult, but the appearances easy and showy.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Essence, Quality

  Michel de Montaigne (1849). “Works: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy; with Notes, Notices, Etc”, p.401

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• Habit is second nature.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Nature, Habit

  "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" by John Bartlett, 10th ed., 1919.

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• I have seen books made of things neither studied nor ever understood ... the author contenting himself for his own part, to have cast the plot and projected the design of it, and by his industry to have bound up the fagot of unknown provisions; at least the ink and paper his own. This may be said to be a buying or borrowing, and not a making or compiling of a book.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Book, Ink And Paper, Design

  "Essays". Book by Michel de Montaigne, Book III, Chapter XII; in "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" (1922), p. 653-54, 1595.

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• And not to serve for a table-talk.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Tables

  Michel de Montaigne (1866). “Essays [tr. by Cotton”, p.19

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• We are all of us richer than we think we are.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Thinking, Blessing, Wealth

  Michel de Montaigne, Charles Cotton (1711). “Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne: In Three Books with Marginal Notes and Quotations. And an Account of the Author's Life. With a Short Character of the Author and Translator,”, p.354

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• Intoxication is calculated to put heart into the elderly and give them delight in dancing.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Heart, Wine, Elderly

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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• Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Accustomed, Barbarity

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• I see several animals that live so entire and perfect a life, some without sight, others without hearing: who knows whether to us also one, two, or three, or many other senses, may not be wanting?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Animal, Sight, Two

  Michel de Montaigne, Antoine JAY (1842). “The Complete Works of Michael de Montaigne; Comprising; the Essays, Translated by Cotton; the Letters; the Journey Into Germany and Italy, Now First Translated; a Life by the Editor; Notes: ... Critical Opinions; ... the Éloges of MM. Jay and Villemain; a”, p.275

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• Our skin is provided as adequately as theirs with endurance against the assaults of the weather: witness so many nations who have not yet tried the use of any clothes. Our ancient Gauls wore hardly any clothes; nor do the Irish, our neighbors, under so cold a sky.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Sky, Weather, Clothes

  "Complete Essays".

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• The height and value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise; so far from difficulty, that boys, as well as men, and the innocent as well as the subtle, may make it their own; and it is by order and good conduct, and not by force, that it is to be acquired.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Exercise, Boys, Men

  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.94

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• Princes give mee sufficiently, if they take nothing from me, and doe me much good, if they doe me no hurt: it is all I require of them.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Hurt, Giving, Royalty

  "Montaigne's Essays".

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• Lying is a disgraceful vice, and one that Plutarch paints in most disgraceful colors, when he says that it is "affording testimony that one first despises God, and then fears men." It is not possible more happily to describe its horrible, disgusting, and abandoned nature; for can we imagine anything more vile than to be cowards with regard to men, and brave with regard to God.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Lying, Men, Color

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• Glory consists of two parts: the one in setting too great a value upon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Two, Littles, Glory

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.668, 谷月社

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• In my opinion it is the happy living, and not, as Antisthenes said, the happy lying, in which human happiness consists.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Happiness, Lying, Opinion

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