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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

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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
Forward
Notions
Truth
Publish
School
Establish
Schools
Debate
Notion
Unresolved
Questions
Formless
Seek
Doubtful

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Age imprints more wrinkles a in the mind, than it does in the face, and souls are never, or very rarely seen, that in growing old do not smell sour and musty. Man moves all together, both towards his perfection and decay.
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Long life, and short, are by death made all one for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.
Michel de Montaigne
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Fortune does us neither good nor hurt she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition.
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I find no quality so easy for a man to counterfeit as devotion, though his life and manner are not conformable to it the essence of it is abstruse and occult, but the appearances easy and showy.
Michel de Montaigne
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All the opinions in the world point out that pleasure is our aim.
Michel de Montaigne
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Who feareth to suffer suffereth already, because he feareth.
Michel de Montaigne
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But the touch or company of any man whatsoever stirreth up their heat, which in their solitude was hushed and quiet, and lay as cinders raked up in ashes.
Michel de Montaigne
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No man divulges his revenue, or at least which way it comes in: but every one publishes his acquisitions.
Michel de Montaigne
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The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man some contribute treachery, others injustice, atheism, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power.
Michel de Montaigne
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To die is not to play a part in society it is the act of a single person. Let us live and laugh among our friends let us die and sulk among strangers.
Michel de Montaigne
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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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We do not correct the man we hang we correct others by him.
Michel de Montaigne
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In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.
Michel de Montaigne
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We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.
Michel de Montaigne
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Cowardice is the mother of cruelty.
Michel de Montaigne
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Habit is a second nature.
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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Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favorably and well in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life to alleviate the sense of them.
Michel de Montaigne
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Speaking is half his that speaks, and half his that hears.
Michel de Montaigne
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The height and value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise so far from difficulty, that boys, as well as men, and the innocent as well as the subtle, may make it their own and it is by order and good conduct, and not by force, that it is to be acquired.
Michel de Montaigne