Quote

'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.

Michel de Montaigne

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Michel de Montaigne
Age: 59 †
Born: 1533
Born: February 28
Died: 1592
Died: September 13
Autobiographer
Essayist
French Moralist
Jurist
Philosopher
Poet Lawyer
Politician
Translator
Writer
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Miquèu Eiquèm de Montanha
Miqueu Eiquem de Montanha
Pain
Giving
Sharpness
Mind
Pains
Pleasures
Edge
Edges
Gives
Pleasure

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

Image
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
Image
Necessity is a violent school-mistress.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
God defend me from myself.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
If I were a maker of books I should compile a register, with comments, of different deaths. He who should teach people to die, would teach them to live.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me--a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould
Michel de Montaigne
Image
In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota for my knowledge I cannot answer.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the extremest of all vices.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Learning is a good medicine: but no medicine is powerful enough to preserve itself from taint and corruption independently of defects in the jar that it is kept in. One man sees clearly but does not see straight: consequently he sees what is good but fails to follow it he sees knowledge and does not use it.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Behold the hands, how they promise, conjure, appeal, menace, pray, supplicate, refuse, beckon, interrogate, admire, confess, cringe, instruct, command, mock and what not besides, with a variation and multiplication of variation which makes the tongue envious.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Aesop, that great man, saw his master making water as he walked. What! he said, Must we void ourselves as we run? Use our timeas best we may, yet a great part of it will still be idly and ill spent.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
It's not victory if it doesn't end the war.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent. Such as are between both (which is the most common fashion), it is they that spoil all they will needs chew our meat for us and take upon them a law to judge, and by consequence to square and incline the story according to their fantasy.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The pleasantest things in the world are pleasant thoughts, and the great art of life is to have as many of them as possible.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
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
Image
The receipts of cookery are swelled to a volume, but a good stomach excels them all to which nothing contributes more than industry and temperance.
Michel de Montaigne