Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 4

• When I am attached by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Depression, Running, Book

  Michel de Montaigne (1956). “Autobiography: Comprising the Life of the Wisest Man of His Times ...”

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• When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; his accusations of himself are always believed; his praises never.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Loss, Men, Lost Friendship

  Michel de Montaigne “Annotated Essays of Michel de Montaigne with English Grammar Exercises: by Michel de Montaigne (Author), Robert Powell (Editor)”, Powell Publications, LLC

  27 Copy quote

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

  Michel de Montaigne

  Nonsense, Misfortunes

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• 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

• If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Funny, Death, Jobs

  Essays Bk III, Ch. 12 'Of Physiognomy'

  23 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

• Memory is a wonderfully useful tool, and without it judgement does its work with difficulty; it is entirely lacking in me.... Now,the more I distrust my memory, the more confused it becomes. It serves me better by chance encounter; I have to solicit it nonchalantly. For if I press it, it is stunned; and once it has begun to totter, the more I probe it, the more it gets mixed up and embarrassed. It serves me at its own time, not at mine.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Memories, Confused, Self

  4 Copy quote

• Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Attitude, Soul, Poverty

  15 Copy quote

• Wine is the benevolent god, who gives back gaiety to men and restores youth to the old.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Wine, Men, Giving

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• A man must always study, but he must not always go to school: what a contemptible thing is an old abecedarian!

  Michel de Montaigne

  School, Men, Study

  Michel de Montaigne, William Hazlitt (1860). “The Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy”, p.352

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• 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.

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• In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life; and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.

  Michel de Montaigne

  War, Book, Exercise

  "The Autobiography of Michel de Montaigne".

  9 Copy quote

• Whoever will be cured of ignorance, let him confess it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Ignorance

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

  5 Copy quote

• My art and profession is to live.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Life, Art, Profession

  Michel de Montaigne (1967). “The Essays of Montaigne”

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• It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Possession, Enjoyment, Mere

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• We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Death, Life And Death, Trouble

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

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• 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

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• 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

• 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

• Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Nature, Rivers, Earth Day

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• ~The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them ~

  Michel de Montaigne

  Lying, Satisfaction In Life, Use

  'Essais' (1580) bk. 1, ch. 20

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• Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Time, Wrinkles, Mind

  Michel de Montaigne (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)”, p.1055, Delphi Classics

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• 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

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• When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Funny, Humor, Cat

  Essais bk. 2, ch. 12 (1580)

  41 Copy quote

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

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Needs, Ears

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