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Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.
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
Obsession
Madness
Genius
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.
Michel de Montaigne
Books are pleasant, but if by being over-studious we impair our health and spoil our good humour, two of the best things we have, let us give it over. I, for my part, am one of those who think no fruit derived from them can recompense so great a loss.
Michel de Montaigne
It is a rare life that remains orderly even in private.
Michel de Montaigne
Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant.
Michel de Montaigne
Make use of life while you have it. Whether you have lived enough depends upon yourself, not on the number of your years.
Michel de Montaigne
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
I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.
Michel de Montaigne
Obstinacy and dogmatism are the surest signs of stupidity. Is there anything more confident, resolute, disdainful, grave and serious than an ass?
Michel de Montaigne
We seem ambitious God's whole work to undo. ...With new diseases on ourselves we war, And with new physic, a worse engine far.
Michel de Montaigne
No man dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours, than that which was before your birth, and concerneth you no more.
Michel de Montaigne
Men are nothing until they are excited.
Michel de Montaigne
Things seem greater by imagination than they are in effect.
Michel de Montaigne
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
In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books.
Michel de Montaigne
Since philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in it?
Michel de Montaigne
When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
Michel de Montaigne
Ambition is, of all other, the most contrary humor to solitude and glory and repose are so inconsistent that they cannot possibly inhabit one and the same place and for so much as I understand, those have only their arms and legs disengaged from the crowd, their mind and intention remain engaged behind more than ever.
Michel de Montaigne
It is not a mind, it is not a body that we educate, but it is a man, and we must not make two parts of him.
Michel de Montaigne
All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own.
Michel de Montaigne
Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.
Michel de Montaigne
