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Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.

Michel de Montaigne

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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
Lose
Loses
Rather
Persons
Person
Chooses
Conscience
Honor

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is a rare life that remains orderly even in private.
Michel de Montaigne
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It needs courage to be afraid.
Michel de Montaigne
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I admire the assurance and confidence everyone has in himself, whereas there is hardly anything I am sure I know or that I dare give my word I can do.
Michel de Montaigne
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Each person calls barbarism whatever is not his or her own practice.... We may call Cannibals barbarians, in respect to the rulesof reason, but not in respect to ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarity.
Michel de Montaigne
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The first distinction among men, and the first consideration that gave one precedence over another, was doubtless the advantage of beauty.
Michel de Montaigne
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Princes give mee sufficiently, if they take nothing from me, and doe me much good, if they doe me no hurt: it is all I require of them.
Michel de Montaigne
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One open way of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and draws out discoveries, like wine and love.
Michel de Montaigne
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Writing does not cause misery. It is born of misery.
Michel de Montaigne
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He that had never seen a river, imagined the first he met with to be the sea.
Michel de Montaigne
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I go out of my way, but rather by license than carelessness.... It is the inattentive reader who loses my subject, not I. Some word about it will always be found off in a corner, which will not fail to be sufficient, though it takes little room.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy.
Michel de Montaigne
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I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.
Michel de Montaigne
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Everyone gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.
Michel de Montaigne
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No wonder, said an Ancient, that chance has so much power over us, since it is by chance that we live.
Michel de Montaigne
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The worth of the mind consisteth not in going high, but in marching orderly.
Michel de Montaigne
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Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to.
Michel de Montaigne
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We cannot fail in following nature.
Michel de Montaigne
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A man should think less of what he eats and more with whom he eats because no food is so satisfying as good company.
Michel de Montaigne
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Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
Michel de Montaigne