Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 16

• After mature deliberation of counsel, the good Queen to establish a rule and immutable example unto all posterity, for the moderation and required modesty in a lawful marriage, ordained the number of six times a day as a lawful, necessary and competent limit.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Sex, Queens, Numbers

  17 Copy quote

• Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet - the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Moving, Devil, Vices

  Attributed to "Essais" by Michel de Montaigne, 1595.

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• I never rebel so much against France as not to regard Paris with a friendly eye; she has had my heart since my childhood... I love her tenderly, even to her warts and her spots. I am French only by this great city: the glory of France, and one of the noblest ornaments of the world.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Heart, Eye, Cities

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• Since philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in it?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Art, Children, Philosophy

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

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• When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Sports, Cat, Play

  "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" by John Bartlett, 10th ed., 1919.

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• It is only reasonable to allow the administration of affairs to mothers before their children reach the age prescribed by law at which they themselves can be responsible. But that father would have reared them ill who could not hope that in their maturity they would have more wisdom and competence than his wife.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Family, Mother, Children

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• Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it; and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything, to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Revenge, Criticism, Critics

  "Michel de Montaigne: Selected Essays".

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• Age imprints more wrinkles a in the mind, than it does in the face, and souls are never, or very rarely seen, that in growing old do not smell sour and musty. Man moves all together, both towards his perfection and decay.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Moving, Men, Smell

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

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• Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favorably and well in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life to alleviate the sense of them.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Wisdom, Exercise, Numbers

  Michel de Montaigne (1894*). “The Essays of Michel de Montaigne”

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• There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Doing Good, Rejoice, Gratification

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.612, Stanford University Press

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• And obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at least in vigour and stability.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Vigor, Stubbornness, Obstinacy

  "Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays".

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• I go out of my way, but rather by license than carelessness.... It is the inattentive reader
  who loses my subject, not I. Some word about it will always be found off in a corner, which will not fail to be sufficient, though it takes little room.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Reading, Littles, Inattention

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”

  7 Copy quote

• In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Life, Success, Lying

  Attributed to "Essais" by Michel de Montaigne, Book I, Ch. 9, 1595.

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• Oh these foolish men! They could not create so much as a worm, but they create gods by the dozens.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Foolish Man, Religion

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• I enter into discussion and argument with great freedom and ease, inasmuch as opinion finds me in a bad soil to penetrate and take deep root in. No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, whatever contrast it offers to my own. There is no fancy so frivolous and so extravagant that it does not seem to me quite suitable to the production of the human mind.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Roots, Mind, Ease

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• The beginnings of all things are weak and tender. We must therefore be clear-sighted in the beginnings, for, as in their budding we discern not the danger, so in their full growth we perceive not the remedy.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Growth, Weak, Danger

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

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• Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Use, Weapons, Dangerous

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.588, 谷月社

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• I admire the assurance and confidence everyone has in himself, whereas there is hardly anything I am sure I know or that I dare give my word I can do.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Confidence, Giving, Admire

  Michel de Montaigne (1949). “Selected Essays: The Charles Cotton - W.C. Hazlitt Translation, Rev. and Edited, with an Introd”

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• Some, either from being glued to vice by a natural attachment, or from long habit, no longer recognize its ugliness.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Attachment, Long, Vices

  Michel de Montaigne (1973). “Selections from the Essays”, Harlan Davidson

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• The archer who overshoots his mark does no better than he who falls short of it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Fall, Archer, Doe

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• No spiritual mind remains within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its own strength.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Spiritual, Mind, Remains

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• There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Government, Vexation, States

  Michel de Montaigne (1907). “The Essays”

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• When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Sight, Opinion

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

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• Diogenes was asked what wine he liked best; and he answered as I would have done when he said, "Somebody else's".

  Michel de Montaigne

  Wine, Done, Champagne

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• The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.

  Michel de Montaigne

  House, Life Is, Labour

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

  4 Copy quote

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