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Michel de Montaigne
155 quotes
“As to fidelity, there is no animal in the world so treacherous as man. Our histories have recorded the violent pursuits that dogs have made after the murderers of their masters.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 12 (tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877)
“The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 12 (tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877)
“The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first law that ever God gave to man was a law of pure obedience; it was a commandment naked and simple, wherein man had nothing to inquire after, nor to dispute; forasmuch as to obey is the proper office of a rational soul, acknowledging a heavenly superior and benefactor.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 12 (tr. Cotton, 1685)
“Of all human and ancient opinions concerning religion, that seems to me the most likely and most excusable, that acknowledged God as an incomprehensible power, the original and preserver of all things, all goodness, all perfection, receiving and taking in good part the honour and reverence that man paid him, under what method, name, or ceremonies soever”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man is forming thousands of ridiculous relations between himself and God.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To an atheist all writings tend to atheism: he corrupts the most innocent matter with his own venom.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“L'homme est bien insensé. Il ne saurait forger un ciron, et forge des Dieux à douzaines.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Quelle vérité que ces montagnes bornent, qui est mensonge qui se tient au delà?”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ceux qui ont apparié notre vie à un songe ont eu de la raison. ... Nous veillons dormants et veillants dormons.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 12 (Bartlett's, 15th ed. 1980)
“There must then be something that is better, and that must be God. When you see a stately and stupendous edifice, though you do not know who is the owner of it, you would yet conclude it was not built for rats. And this divine structure, that we behold of the celestial palace, have we not reason to believe that it is the residence of some possessor, who is much greater than we?”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 12 (tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877)
“We are no nearer heaven on the top of Mount Cenis than at the bottom of the sea; take the distance with your astrolabe. They debase God even to the carnal knowledge of women, to so many times, and so many generations.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was truly very good reason that we should be beholden to God only, and to the favour of his grace, for the truth of so noble a belief, since from his sole bounty we receive the fruit of immortality, which consists in the enjoyment of eternal beatitude.... The more we give and confess to owe and render to God, we do it with the greater Christianity.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God might grant us riches, honours, life, and even health, to our own hurt; for every thing that is pleasing to us is not always good for us. If he sends us death, or an increase of sickness, instead of a cure, Vvrga tua et baculus, tuus ipsa me consolata sunt. "Thy rod and thy staff have comforted me," he does it by the rule of his providence, which better and more certainly discerns what is proper for us than we can do; and we ought to take it in good part, as coming from a wise and most friendly hand”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Great abuses in the world are begotten, or, to speak more boldly, all the abuses of the world are begotten, by our being taught to be afraid of professing our ignorance, and that we are bound to accept all things we are not able to refute: we speak of all things by precepts and decisions. The style at Rome was that even that which a witness deposed to having seen with his own eyes, and what a judge determined with his most certain knowledge, was couched in this form of speaking: “it seems to me.” They make me hate things that are likely, when they would impose them upon me as infallible.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ch. 12 (tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877)
“How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man may be humble through vainglory.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I find that the best goodness I have has some tincture of vice.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Saying is one thing and doing is another.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As far as physicians go, chance is more valuable than knowledge.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There were never in the world two opinions alike, any more than two hairs or two grains. Their most universal quality is diversity.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I will follow the good side right to the fire, but not into it if I can help it.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Few men have been admired by their own households.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Chaque homme porte la forme, entière de l'humaîne condition.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Malice sucks up the greatest part of its own venom, and poisons itself.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Non pudeat dicere, quod non pudet sentire: "Let no man be ashamed to speak what he is not ashamed to think.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It (marriage) happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Il n'est si homme de bien, qu'il mette à l'examen des loix toutes ses actions et pensées, qui ne soit pendable dix fois en sa vie.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man must be a little mad if he does not want to be even more stupid.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the very beginning of my fevers and sicknesses that cast me down, whilst still entire, and but little, disordered in health, I reconcile myself to Almighty God by the last Christian, offices, and find myself by so doing less oppressed and more easy, and have got, methinks, so much the better of my disease. And I have yet less need of a notary or counsellor than of a physician.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have seen no more evident monstrosity and miracle in the world than myself.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“J'ai seulement fait ici un amas de fleurs étrangères, n'y ayant fourni du mien que le filet à les lier.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God never sends evils”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is more of a job to interpret the interpretations than to interpret the things, and there are more books about books than about any other subject: we do nothing but write glosses about each other.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who remembers the evils he has undergone, and those that have threatened him, and the slight causes that have changed him from one state to another, prepares himself in that way for future changes and for recognizing his condition. The life of Caesar has no more to show us than our own; an emperor's or an ordinary man's, it is still a life subject to all human accidents.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Si, avons nous beau monter sur des échasses, car sur des échasses encore faut-il marcher de nos jambes. Et au plus élevé trône du monde, si ne sommes assis que sur notre cul.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It would be better to have no laws at all than to have them in such profusion as we do.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this present that God has made us, there is nothing unworthy our care; we stand accountable for it even to a hair; and is it not a commission to man, to conduct man according to his condition; 'tis express, plain, and the very principal one, and the Creator has seriously and strictly prescribed it to us. Authority has power only to work in regard to matters of common judgment, and is of more weight in a foreign language; therefore let us again charge at it in this place”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Plato says, "'Tis to no purpose for a sober man to knock at the door of the Muses;" and Aristotle says "that no excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of folly.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For a desperate disease a desperate cure.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Michael De Montaigne
“And not to serve for a table-talk.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Michael De Montaigne
“To which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who confers a benefit on any one loves him better than he is beloved by him again.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Michael De Montaigne
“The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all; they will chew our meat for us.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Michael De Montaigne