Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 35

• Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me--a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life; not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Book, Self, Hands

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

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• The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle and without eccentricity.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Beautiful, Order, Miracle

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

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• There is nothing so noble and so right as to play our human life well and fitly, nor anything so difficult to learn as how to livethis life well and according to Nature.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Play, Noble, Human Nature

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• Whoever will imagine a perpetual confession of ignorance, a judgment without leaning or inclination, on any occasion whatever, hasa conception of Pyrrhonism.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Ignorance, Judgment, Imagine

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.374, Stanford University Press

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• The common notions that we find in credit around us and infused into our souls by our fathers' seed, these seem to be the universal and natural ones. Whence it comes to pass that what is off the hinges of custom, people believe to be off the hinges of reason.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Father, Believe, People

  Michel de Montaigne (1979). “Essays”

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• In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge; of judgement and virtue, little news.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Father, Judgement, News

  Michel de Montaigne (1965). “Complete Essays”, p.100, Stanford University Press

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• He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Shadow, Body, Firsts

  Michel de Montaigne, Bayle St. John (1866). “Essays [tr. by Cotton”, p.366

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• I determine nothing; I do not comprehend things; I suspend judgment; I examine.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Judgment, Determine

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• It is not my deeds that I write down, it is myself, my essence.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Writing, Essence, Deeds

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.274, Stanford University Press

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• Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Memories, Lying, Men

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• I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  School, Debate, Notion

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.229, Stanford University Press

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• If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Love, Men, Giving

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Essays of Montaigne”, p.256, Xist Publishing

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• Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Love, Sports, Nurse

  Attributed to "Essais" by Michel de Montaigne, 1595.

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• It is a small soul, buried beneath the weight of affairs, that does not know how to get clean away from them, that cannot put them aside and pick them up again.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Soul, Doe, Weight

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

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• And therefore, Reader, I myself am the subject of my book: it is not reasonable that you should employ your leisure on a topic so frivolous and so vain. Therefore, Farewell.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Book, Farewell, Leisure

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• Man (in good earnest) is a marvellous vain, fickle, and unstable subject, and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Fickle, Uniforms

  Michel de Montaigne (2013). “Michel de Montaigne: Selected Essays”, p.3, Courier Corporation

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• There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)

  Michel de Montaigne

  Desire, Natural, Plus

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• In general I ask for books that make use of learning, not those that build it up.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Book, Use, Asks

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.301, Stanford University Press

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• No wind favors he who has no destined port.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Inspirational, Change, Inspiring

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• Let every foot have its own shoe.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Shoes, Feet

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• Why do people respect the package rather than the man?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, People, Appearance

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• To behave rightly, we ourselves should never lay a hand on our servants as long as our anger lasts. Things will seem different to us when we have quieted and cooled down.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Anger, Hands, Long

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.540, Stanford University Press

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• It needs courage to be afraid.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Confidence, Needs

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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• Tis so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Kings, War, Medieval War

  Michel de Montaigne (1872). “All the Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne”, p.730

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• Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Fantasy, Sin, Repentance

  Michel de Montaigne (1603). “Essayes”, p.46

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