Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 12

• It has never occurred to me to wish for empire or royalty, nor for the eminence of those high and commanding fortunes. My aim lies not in that direction; I love myself too well.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Lying, Wish, I Love Myself

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• Some men seem remarkable to the world in whom neither their wives nor their valets saw anything extraordinary. Few men have been admired by their servants.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Wife, World

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• After a tongue has once got the knack of lying, it is not to be imagined how impossible almost it is to reclaim it. Whence it comes to pass, that we see some men, who are otherwise very honest, so subject to this vice.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Lying, Men, Vices

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• We may so seize on virtue, that if we embrace it with an overgreedy and violent desire, it may become vicious.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Desire, May, Virtue

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• I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent. Such as are between both (which is the most common fashion), it is they that spoil all; they will needs chew our meat for us and take upon them a law to judge, and by consequence to square and incline the story according to their fantasy.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Love, Fashion, Simple

  Michel de Montaigne (1893). “The Essayes of Michael Lord of Montaigne”

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• 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

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• I must use these great men's virtues as a cloak for my weakness.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Weakness, Use

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Essays”

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• To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value, is pusillanimity and cowardice.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Speak Less, Pay

  Michel de Montaigne (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)”, p.614, Delphi Classics

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• Most of our occupations are low comedy.... We must play our part duly, but as the part of a borrowed character. Of the mask and appearance we must not make a real essence, nor of what is foreign what is our very own.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Real, Character, Essence

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

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• Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Life, Dream, Sleep

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• All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Humility, Advice, Way

  Michel de Montaigne (2009). “Essays”, p.1603, The Floating Press

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• He who lives not to others, lives little to himself.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Littles

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• Friendship is a creature formed for a companionship not for a herd.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Companionship, Herds, Creatures

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• What fear has once made me will, I am bound still to will when without fear.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Fear, Self, Behavior

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.608, Stanford University Press

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• Among the liberal arts, let us begin with the art that liberates us.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Art, Liberal Arts

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.117, Stanford University Press

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• One may be humble out of pride.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Humble, Humility, Pride

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Essays of Montaigne”, p.758, Xist Publishing

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• We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Games, Play, Moments

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.244, Stanford University Press

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• Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Death, Fear, Fire

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• Dreams are faithful interpreters of our inclinations; but there is art required to sort and understand them.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Dream, Art, Faithful

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Essays of Montaigne”, p.1257, Xist Publishing

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• A straight oar looks bent in the water. It matters not merely that we see a thing, but how we see it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  What Matters, Water, Looks

  "Selected Essays".

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• Nature is a gentle guide, but not more sweet and gentle than prudent and just.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Sweet, Nature, Prudent

  Michel de Montaigne, George Savile Marquis of Halifax (1743). “Montaigne's Essays in Three Books: With Notes and Quotations. And an Account of the Author's Life. With a Short Character of the Author and Translator”, p.399

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• An honest man is not accountable for the vice and folly of his trade, and therefore ought not to refuse the exercise of it. It is the custom of his country, and there is profit in it. We must live by the world, and such as we find it, so make use of it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Country, Honesty, Exercise

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• 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.

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• O human creature,you are the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and all in all, the fool of the farce.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Arrogance, Farce, Fool

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• How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Inspirational, Faith, Thinking

  "The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations". Book by Robert Andrews, Columbia University Press, p.104, 1989.

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