Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 4

• Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men.

  Michel de Montaigne

  God, Lying, Men

  19 Copy quote

• I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Discovery, Finding Yourself, Fleeing

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

  29 Copy quote

• It takes strong ears indeed to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship. For it is a healthy love that will risk wounding or offending in order to profer a benefit.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Love, Strong, Honesty

  13 Copy quote

• No-one is exempt from speaking nonsense – the only misfortune is to do it solemnly.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Nonsense, Misfortunes

  12 Copy quote

• The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Cute, Soul, Lost Friendship

  49 Copy quote

• There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Wish, Natural, Knows

  "Essais". Book by Michel de Montaigne, Book III, Ch. 13, 1595.

  19 Copy quote

• When I quote others I do so in order to express my own ideas more clearly.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Inspirational, Golf, Order

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

  44 Copy quote

• A man has need of tough ears to hear himself fairly judged.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Needs, Ears

  4 Copy quote

• Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart. If I were pressed to say why I loved him, I feel that my only reply could be: Because it was he, because it was I.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Heart, Love Is, Piano

  38 Copy quote

• I would rather be an expert on me than on Cicero

  Michel de Montaigne

  Experts

  Michel de Montaigne (1991). “The essays of Michel de Montaigne”, Lane, Allen

  8 Copy quote

• It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Communication, Knowledge, Brain

  Essays Bk 1 (transl. D. M. Frame)

  57 Copy quote

• And if nobody reads me, shall I have wasted my time, when I have beguiled so many idle hours with such pleasant and profitable reflections?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Book, Reading, Reflection

  5 Copy quote

• I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but careless of death, and still more of my unfinished garden.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Garden, Want, Cabbage

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.62, Stanford University Press

  8 Copy quote

• There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Inspirational, Music, Dance

  Attributed to "Essais" by Michel de Montaigne, Book III, Ch. 13, 1595.

  69 Copy quote

• When we have got it, we want something else.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Want Something, Want, Satisfaction

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “The Essays of Montaigne”, p.480, BookRix

  6 Copy quote

• Sometimes it is a good choice not to choose at all.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Choices, Sometimes, Good Choices

  Michel de Montaigne (1603). “Essayes”

  13 Copy quote

• Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Memories, Wish, Criminal Mind

  21 Copy quote

• Learning is a good medicine: but no medicine is powerful enough to preserve itself from taint and corruption independently of defects in the jar that it is kept in. One man sees clearly but does not see straight: consequently he sees what is good but fails to follow it; he sees knowledge and does not use it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Powerful, Educational, Men

  Michel de Montaigne (1991). “The essays of Michel de Montaigne”, Lane, Allen

  6 Copy quote

• The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Happiness, Beautiful, Soul

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.622, Stanford University Press

  7 Copy quote

• If you have known how to compose your life, you have done a great deal more than the person who knows how to compose a book. You have done more than the one who has taken cities and empires.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Life, Book, Taken

  5 Copy quote

• Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Funny, Wise, Humor

  Attributed to "Essais" by Michel de Montaigne, Book III, Ch. 8, 1595.

  7 Copy quote

• I never met a man who thought his thinking was faulty.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Thinking, Men, Mets

  5 Copy quote

• Most pleasures embrace us but to strangle.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Pleasure, Embrace

  5 Copy quote

• We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Needs, Interpretation

  8 Copy quote

• We should rather examine, who is better learned, than who is more learned.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Should

  Michel de Montaigne (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)”, p.333, Delphi Classics

  5 Copy quote

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