Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 38

• The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Betrayal, Lying, Men

  Michel de Montaigne “Annotated Essays of Michel de Montaigne with English Grammar Exercises: by Michel de Montaigne (Author), Robert Powell (Editor)”, Powell Publications, LLC

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• A volunteer, you assign yourself specific roles and risks according to your judgement of their brilliance and importance, and you see when life itself may be justifiably devoted to them.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Volunteer, Judgement, Risk

  Michel de Montaigne (1976). “The Complete Essays of Montaigne”

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• One man may have some special knowledge at first-hand about the character of a river or a spring, who otherwise knows only what everyone else knows. Yet to give currency to this shred of information, he will undertake to write on the whole science of physics. From this fault many great troubles spring.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Spring, Writing, Character

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Essays”

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• Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Ambition, Support, Hatred

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• Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Memories, Lying, Men

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• The religion of my doctor or my lawyer cannot matter. That consideration has nothing in common with the functions of the friendship they owe me.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Doctors, Matter, Common

  Essays Bk l, Ch. 28 'Of Friendship'

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• It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my reason.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Order, Lust, Opinion

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.312, Stanford University Press

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• Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Believe, Writing, Defense

  Michel de Montaigne (1979). “Essays”

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• If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Thinking, People, Ordinary

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• It is a stupid presumption to go about despising and condemning as false anything that seems to us improbable; this is a common fault in those who think they have more intelligence than the crowd.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Stupid, Thinking, Crowds

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Essays”

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• It is the part of cowardice, not of courage, to go and crouch in a hole under a massive tomb, to avoid the blows of fortune.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Blow, Cowardice, Holes

  Michel de Montaigne (1925). “The essays of Montaigne”

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• The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Writing, Affair, Good History

  Michel de Montaigne (1877). “Selected Essays”, p.48, Courier Corporation

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• I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  School, Debate, Notion

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.229, Stanford University Press

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• The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.

  Michel de Montaigne

  God, Confidence, Men

  Michel de Montaigne (1912*). “The Essays of Michel de Montaigne”

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• As far as I am concerned, no road that would lead us to health is either arduous or expensive.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Concerned, Expensive

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”

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• To know how to live is my trade and my art.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Art, Trade, Know How

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• Whatever is preached to us, and whatever we learn, we should still remember that it is man that gives, and man that receives; it is a mortal hand that presents it to us, it is a mortal hand that accepts it.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Hands, Giving

  Michel de Montaigne (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)”, p.800, Delphi Classics

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• How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Survival, Reputation

  Michel de Montaigne (1976). “The Complete Essays of Montaigne”

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• The vulgar and common esteem is seldom happy in hitting right; and I am much mistaken if, amongst the writings of my time, the worst are not those which have most gained the popular applause.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Writing, Hitting, Common

  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.216

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• We should be similarly wary of accepting common opinions; we should judge them by the ways of reason not by popular vote.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Popular Vote, Judging, Political

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

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• It is indeed the boundary of life, beyond which we are not to pass; which the law of nature has pitched for a limit not to be exceeded.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Law, Age, Limits

  Michel de Montaigne (1853). “The Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy. With Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices &c., &c”, p.151

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• The clatter of arms drowns out the voice of law.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Law, Voice, Political

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• No man is a hero to his own valet.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Hero, Men, Political

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• For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Wise, Desire, Use

  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.215

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• Every place swarms with commentaries; of authors there is great scarcity.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Criticism, Scarcity, Commentary

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.1093, 谷月社

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