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I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.

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
Afraid
Wind
Eyes
Stomachs
Understanding
Grasp
Eye
Catch
Everything
Curiosity
Nothing
Except
Bigger

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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I honor most those to whom I show least honor and where my soul moves with great alacrity, I forget the proper steps of ceremony.
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No doctor takes pleasure in the health even of his friends.
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I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head.
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Take care that old age does not wrinkle your spirit even more than your face.
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All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty and good-nature
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I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more willfully obstinate.
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To how many blockheads of my time has a cold and taciturn demeanor procured the credit of prudence and capacity!
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My library is my kingdom, and here I try to make my rule absolute-shutting off this single nook from wife, daughter and society. Elsewhere I have only a verbal authority, and vague. Unhappy is the man, in my opinion, who has no spot at home where he can be at home to himself-to court himself and hide away.
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It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
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There is nothing so extreme that is not allowed by the custom of some nation or other.
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In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge of judgement and virtue, little news.
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A young man ought to cross his own rules, to awake his vigor, and to keep it from growing faint and rusty. And there is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is carried on by rule and discipline.
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Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are found and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing.
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~The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them ~
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There is a certain amount of purpose, acquiescence, and satisfaction in nursing one's melancholy.
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Those who make a practice of comparing human actions are never so perplexed as when they try to see them as a whole and in the same light for they commonly contradict each other so strangely that it seems impossible that they have come from the same shop.
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A foreign war is a lot milder than a civil war.
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No man divulges his revenue, or at least which way it comes in: but every one publishes his acquisitions.
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Our speech has its weaknesses and its defects, like all the rest. Most of the occasions for the troubles of the world are grammatical.
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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.
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