Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 32

• Like the watermen who advance forward while they look backward.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Looks

  Michel de Montaigne (1759). “The Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne: Translated Into English”, p.8

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• In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge; of judgement and virtue, little news.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Father, Judgement, News

  Michel de Montaigne (1965). “Complete Essays”, p.100, Stanford University Press

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• A tutor should not be continually thundering instruction into the ears of his pupil, as if he were pouring it through a funnel, but, after having put the lad, like a young horse, on a trot, before him, to observe his paces, and see what he is able to perform, should, according to the extent of his capacity, induce him to taste, to distinguish, and to find out things for himself; sometimes opening the way, at other times leaving it for him to open; and by abating or increasing his own pace, accommodate his precepts to the capacity of his pupil.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Horse, Teaching, Leaving

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• Now, since our condition accommodates things to itself, and transforms them according to itself, we no longer know things in their reality; for nothing comes to us that is not altered and falsified by our Senses. When the compass, the square, and the rule are untrue, all the calculations drawn from them, all the buildings erected by their measure, are of necessity also defective and out of plumb. The uncertainty of our senses renders uncertain everything that they produce.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Philosophy, Reality, Squares

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• In my opinion it is the happy living, and not, as Antisthenes said, the happy lying, in which human happiness consists.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Happiness, Lying, Opinion

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• Example is a bright looking-glass, universal and for all shapes to look into.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Glasses, Example, Looks

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• The height and value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise; so far from difficulty, that boys, as well as men, and the innocent as well as the subtle, may make it their own; and it is by order and good conduct, and not by force, that it is to be acquired.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Exercise, Boys, Men

  Michel de Montaigne (1850). “Works, Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy: With Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices &c., &c”, p.94

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• The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making them more great.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Names, Mouths, Fame

  Michel de Montaigne (1872). “All the Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne”, p.529

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• I find no quality so easy for a man to counterfeit as devotion, though his life and manner are not conformable to it; the essence of it is abstruse and occult, but the appearances easy and showy.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Essence, Quality

  Michel de Montaigne (1849). “Works: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy; with Notes, Notices, Etc”, p.401

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• Our truth of nowadays is not what is, but what others can be convinced of; just as we call "money" not only that which is legal, but also any counterfeit that will pass.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Truth, Society, Corruption

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.505, Stanford University Press

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• Nature has with a Motherly Tenderness observed this, that the Action she has enjoyned us for our Necessity should be also pleasant to us, and invites us to them, not only by Reason, but also by Appetite: and ’tis Injustice to infringe her Laws.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Nature, Law, Action

  Michel de Montaigne (1947). “Essays of Michel de Montaigne”

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• Have you known how to take rest? You have done more than he who hath taken empires and cities.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Taken, Cities, Done

  Michel de Montaigne (2014). “Shakespeare's Montaigne: The Florio Translation of the Essays, A Selection”, p.330, New York Review of Books

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• Oh, a friend! How true is that old saying, that the enjoyment of one is sweeter and more necessary than that of the elements of water and fire!

  Michel de Montaigne

  Love, Friendship, Fire

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

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• As by some might be saide of me: that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange floures, and have put nothing of mine unto it, but the thred to binde them. Certes, I have given unto publike opinion, that these borrowed ornaments accompany me; but I meane not they should cover or hide me.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Ornaments, Might, Opinion

  Michel de Montaigne (1928). “The Essayes of Michel, Lord of Montaigne”

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• It is much more easy to accuse the one sex than to excuse the other.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Sex, Men, Excuse

  Michel de Montaigne (2014). “Shakespeare's Montaigne: The Florio Translation of the Essays, A Selection”, New York Review of Books

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• The world is but a perennial movement. All things in it are in constant motion-the earth, the rocks of the Caucasus, the pyramids of Egypt-both with the common motion and with their own.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Rocks, Egypt, Pyramids

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

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• Were I to live my life over again, I should live it just as I have done. I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Life, Past, Complaining

  Michel de Montaigne (1872). “All the Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne”, p.678

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• The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly.

  Michel de Montaigne

  War, Flying High, Soul

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.830, 谷月社

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• Whoever will imagine a perpetual confession of ignorance, a judgment without leaning or inclination, on any occasion whatever, hasa conception of Pyrrhonism.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Ignorance, Judgment, Imagine

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.374, Stanford University Press

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• The common notions that we find in credit around us and infused into our souls by our fathers' seed, these seem to be the universal and natural ones. Whence it comes to pass that what is off the hinges of custom, people believe to be off the hinges of reason.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Father, Believe, People

  Michel de Montaigne (1979). “Essays”

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• Wisdom has its excesses, and has no less need of moderation than folly.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Happiness, Wisdom, Excess

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Essays:”, p.3, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• Those sciences which govern the morals of mankind, such as Theology and Philosophy, make everything their concern: no activity is so private or so secret as to escape their attention or their jurisdiction.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Philosophy, Secret, Attention

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

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• The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Life, Lying, Men

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.67, Stanford University Press

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• But as Nature is the best guide, teaching must be the development of natural inclinations, for which purpose the teacher must watch his pupil and listen to him, not continually bawl words into his ears as if pouring water into a funnel. Good teaching will come from a mind well made rather than well filled.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Teacher, Teaching, Water

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• To behave rightly, we ourselves should never lay a hand on our servants as long as our anger lasts. Things will seem different to us when we have quieted and cooled down.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Anger, Hands, Long

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.540, Stanford University Press

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