Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 33

• Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Accustomed, Barbarity

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• We must reserve a back shop all our own entirely free, in which to establish our real liberty and our principal retreat and solitude.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Real, Solitude, Liberty

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.177, Stanford University Press

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• Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy; research, the progress; ignorance, the end. There is, by heavens, a strong and generous kind of ignorance that yields nothing, for honour and courage, to knowledge: an ignorance to conceive which needs no less knowledge than to conceive knowledge.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Strong, Philosophy, Philosophical

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• Authors communicate with the people by some special extrinsic mark; I am the first to do so by my entire being, as Michel de Montaigne.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Communication, Self, People

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

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• Glory consists of two parts: the one in setting too great a value upon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Two, Littles, Glory

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.668, 谷月社

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• Necessity is a violent school-mistress.

  Michel de Montaigne

  School, Mistress, Violent

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.206, Stanford University Press

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• What kind of truth is it which has these mountains as its boundary and is a lie beyond them?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Lying, Mountain, Kind

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• How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among the friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Home, Desert, Degradation

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.42, Stanford University Press

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• Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it; reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Reason, Natural, Unlawful

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.666, 谷月社

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• We are nearer neighbors to ourselves than the whiteness of snow or the weight of stones are to us: if man does not know himself, how should he know his functions and powers?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Snow, Doe

  Michel de Montaigne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Carew Hazlitt (1910). “Essays of Montaigne, tr. by C. Cotton; rev. by W. C. Hazlett [!”

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• I see several animals that live so entire and perfect a life, some without sight, others without hearing: who knows whether to us also one, two, or three, or many other senses, may not be wanting?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Animal, Sight, Two

  Michel de Montaigne, Antoine JAY (1842). “The Complete Works of Michael de Montaigne; Comprising; the Essays, Translated by Cotton; the Letters; the Journey Into Germany and Italy, Now First Translated; a Life by the Editor; Notes: ... Critical Opinions; ... the Éloges of MM. Jay and Villemain; a”, p.275

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• Rash and incessant scolding runs into custom and renders itself despised.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Running, Scolding, Incessant

  Michel de Montaigne, Charles Cotton, William Carew Hazlitt (2012). “Michel de Montaigne: Selected Essays”, p.157, Courier Corporation

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• We are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Speak, Fame

  Michel de Montaigne (2013). “Michel de Montaigne: Selected Essays”, p.112, Courier Corporation

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• Is there a polity better ordered, the offices better distributed, and more inviolably observed and maintained, than that of bees?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Office, Bees, Insects

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.477, 谷月社

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• We imagine much more appropriately an artisan on his toilet seat or on his wife than a great president, venerable by his demeanorand his ability. It seems to us that they do not stoop from their lofty thrones even to live.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Imagination, Wife, President

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.615, Stanford University Press

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• Experience teaches that a strong memory is generally joined to a weak judgment.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Strong, Memories, Judgment

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• To make judgements about great and lofty things, a soul of the same stature is needed; otherwise we ascribe to them that vice which is our own.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Judgement, Soul, Vices

  'Essais' (1580) bk. 1, ch. 14 [References are to M. Rat's edition of the 'Essais' (1958) which, in accordance with the Strowski and Gebelin text (1906-33), conflates the 1580 edition of books 1 and 2, the revised and enlarged 1588 edition of all three books, and later manuscript additions published posthumously]

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• Few men are admired by their servants.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Admiration, Servant

  "Essais". Book by Michel de Montaigne, Book III, ch. 2, "Of Repentance", c. 1592.

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• Laws are maintained in credit, not because they are essentially just, but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Power, Law, Justice

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

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• The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle and without eccentricity.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Beautiful, Order, Miracle

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

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• What of a truth that is bounded by these mountains and is falsehood to the world that lives beyond?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Life, Truth, Mountain

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

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• There is nothing so noble and so right as to play our human life well and fitly, nor anything so difficult to learn as how to livethis life well and according to Nature.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Play, Noble, Human Nature

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• And not to serve for a table-talk.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Tables

  Michel de Montaigne (1866). “Essays [tr. by Cotton”, p.19

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• It is equally pointless to weep because we won't be alive a hundred years from now as that we were not here a hundred years ago.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Death, Years, Alive

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• I am one of those who hold that poetry is never so blithe as in a wanton and irregular subject.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Poetry, Blithe, Subjects

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.145, Stanford University Press

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