QUOTES by Michel Montaigne
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“Kings and philosophers shit, and so do ladies. Even on the highest throne in the world, we are seated still upon our arses.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“Vainglory and curiosity are the twin scourges of our souls. The former makes us stick our noses into everything: the latter forbids us to leave anything unresolved or undecided.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“It is as though our very touch bore infection: things which in themselves are good and beautiful are corrupted by our handling of them.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“The Stoics forbid this emotion to their sages as being base and cowardly.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“The way of truth is one and artless: the way of private gain and success in such affairs as we are entrusted with is double, uneven and fortuitous. I”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“We are all lumps, and of so various and inform a contexture, that every piece plays, every moment, its own game, and there is as much difference betwixt us and ourselves as betwixt us and others.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“Tis no wonder, says one of the ancients, that chance has so great a dominion over us, since it is by chance we live.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“If you walk on stilts, you're still walking on your feet. If you sit on the highest throne in the world, you're still sitting on your ass.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“As for dying we can only assay that once; we are all apprentices when it comes to that”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“If I can, I shall keep my death from saying anything that my life has not already said."
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“We are never at home, we are always beyond. Fear, desire, hope, project us toward the future and steal from us the consideration of what is, to busy us with what will be, even when we shall no longer be."
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“If a man has no heart for either living or dying; if he has no will either to resist or to run away: what are we to do with him?”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“With very little ado I stop the first sally of my emotions, and leave the subject that begins to be troublesome before it transports me. He who stops not the start will never be able to stop the course; he who cannot keep them out will never, get them out when they are once got in;”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“The majority of our polities, as Aristotle says, are like the Cyclops, abandoning the guidance of the women and children to each individual man according to his mad and injudicious ideas: hardly any, except the polities of Sparta and of Crete, have entrusted the education of children to their laws.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“If it lay in my power to make myself feared, I had rather make myself beloved.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“The more simply we entrust ourself to Nature the more wisely we do so. Oh what a soft and delightful pillow, and what a sane one on which to rest a well-schooled head, are ignorance and unconcern.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“Assaulted as I am by ambition, covetousness, rashness and superstition, and having such enemies to life as that within me, should I start wondering about the motions of the Universe?”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“there is nothing in the whole world madder than bringing matters down to the measure of our own capacities and potentialities. How”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“When a man is commonplace in discussion yet valued for what he writes that shows that his talents lie in his borrowed sources not in himself.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“Happy are they who can please and delight their senses with things insensate—and who can live off their death.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“I have a mind that belongs wholly to itself, and is accustomed to go its own way. Having never until this hour had a master or governor imposed on me, I have advanced as far as I pleased, and at my own pace. This has made me slack and unfit for the service of others; it has made me useless to any but myself.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“Philosophy believes she has not made a bad use of her resources when she has bestowed on Reason sovereign mastery over our soul and authority to bridle our appetites.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“how I would hate the reputation of being clever at writing but stupid and useless at everything else! I would rather be stupid at both than to choose to employ my good qualities as badly as that.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“No one suffers long, save by his own fault. If a man has no heart for either living or dying; if he has no will either to resist or to run away: what are we to do with him?”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“That philosopher who orders us to conceal ourselves and to care for no one but ourselves and who wishes us to remain unknown to others, wants us even less to be held in honour and glory by them. He also advised Idomeneus in no wise to govern his actions by reputation or by common opinion, except to avoid such incidental disadvantages as the contempt of men might bring him.10 Those words are infinitely true, in my opinion, and are reasonable.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“So much din from so many philosophical brainboxes! Trust in your philosophy now! Boast that you are the one who has found the lucky bean in your festive pudding!”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“I had rather my son should learn in a tan-house to speak, than in the schools to prate.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“In marriage, alliances and money rightly weigh at least as much as attractiveness and beauty.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne
“If the original essence of the thing which we fear could confidently lodge itself within us by its own authority it would be the same in all men. For all men are of the same species and, in varying degrees, are all furnished with the same conceptual tools and instruments of judgement.”
Quote by -Michel Montaigne