Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 36

• Let every foot have its own shoe.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Shoes, Feet

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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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• A volunteer, you assign yourself specific roles and risks according to your judgement of their brilliance and importance, and you see when life itself may be justifiably devoted to them.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Volunteer, Judgement, Risk

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

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• It is not without good reason, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Honesty, Memories, Lying

  Michel de Montaigne (2013). “Michel de Montaigne: Selected Essays”, p.11, Courier Corporation

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

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, People, Appearance

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• It needs courage to be afraid.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Confidence, Needs

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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• What harm cause not those huge draughts or pictures which wanton youth with chalk or coals draw in each passage, wall or stairs of our great houses, whence a cruel contempt of our natural store is bred in them?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Wall, House, Graffiti

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• Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Positive, Law Of Attraction, Evil

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• The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all; they will chew our meat for us.

  Michel de Montaigne

  History, Meat, Middle

  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.217

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• This idea is more surely understood by interrogation; WHAT DO I KNOW? which I bear as my motto with the emblem of a pair of scales.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Knowledge, Ideas, Pairs

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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• We cannot do without it, and yet we disgrace and vilify the same. It may be compared to a cage, the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair to get out.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Marriage, Bird, Despair

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• Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it; reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Reason, Natural, Unlawful

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.666, 谷月社

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• To make judgements about great and lofty things, a soul of the same stature is needed; otherwise we ascribe to them that vice which is our own.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Judgement, Soul, Vices

  'Essais' (1580) bk. 1, ch. 14 [References are to M. Rat's edition of the 'Essais' (1958) which, in accordance with the Strowski and Gebelin text (1906-33), conflates the 1580 edition of books 1 and 2, the revised and enlarged 1588 edition of all three books, and later manuscript additions published posthumously]

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• Their [the Skeptics'] way of speaking is: "I settle nothing. . . . I do not understand it. . . . Nothing seems true that may not seem false." Their sacramental word is . . . , which is to say, I suspend my judgment.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Understanding, May, Way

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• There is no virtue which does not rejoice a well-descended nature; there is a kind of I know not what congratulation in well-doing, that gives us an inward satisfaction, and a certain generous boldness that accompanies a good conscience.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Congratulations, Giving, Doe

  Michel de Montaigne (2013). “Michel de Montaigne: Selected Essays”, p.173, Courier Corporation

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• While our pulse beats and we feel emotion, let us put off the business. Things will truly seem different to us when we have quieted and cooled down. It is passion that is in command at first, it is passion that speaks, it is not we ourselves.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Passion, Different, Firsts

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

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• I do not understand; I pause; I examine.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Pauses

  Michel de Montaigne, William Hazlitt, Orlando Williams Wight (1859). “Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Journey Into Italy, and Letters”, p.108

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• If I can, I shall keep my death from saying anything that my life has not already said.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Life, Death, Consistency

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.20, Stanford University Press

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• Laws are maintained in credit, not because they are essentially just, but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Power, Law, Justice

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

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• One man may have some special knowledge at first-hand about the character of a river or a spring, who otherwise knows only what everyone else knows. Yet to give currency to this shred of information, he will undertake to write on the whole science of physics. From this fault many great troubles spring.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Spring, Writing, Character

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Essays”

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• If people must be talking about me, I would have it to be truthfully and justly. I would willingly return from the next world to contradict any person who described me other than I was, although he did it to honour me.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Truth, Self, Talking

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