Quote

[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

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
Matrimony
Happens
Cages
Without
Birds
Despair
Bird
Marriage
Within
Getting

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

Image
If your doctor does not think it good for you to sleep, to drink wine, or to eat of a particular dish, do not worry I will find you another who will not agree with him.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
I look upon the too good opinion that man has of himself, as the nursing mother of all false opinions, both public and private.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Now, since everything else is furnished with the exact amount of needle and thread required to maintain its being, it is in truth incredible that we alone should be brought into the world in a defective and indigent state, in a state such that we cannot maintain ourselves without external aid.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Our wisdom and deliberation for the most part follow the lead of chance.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Our skin is provided as adequately as theirs with endurance against the assaults of the weather: witness so many nations who have not yet tried the use of any clothes. Our ancient Gauls wore hardly any clothes nor do the Irish, our neighbors, under so cold a sky.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
If not for that of conscience, yet at least for ambition's sake, let us reject ambition, let us disdain that thirst of honor and renown, so low and mendicant that it makes us beg it of all sorts of people.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
We cannot fail in following nature.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
A man may be humble through vainglory.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
We judge a horse not only by its pace on a racecourse, but also by its walk, nay, when resting in its stable.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
No spiritual mind remains within itself it is always aspiring and going beyond its own strength.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
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
Image
Who is only good that others may know it, and that he may be the better esteemed when 'tis known, who will do well but upon condition that his virtue may be known to men, is one from whom much service is not to be expected.
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
Others form man I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed, whom I should really make very different from whathe is if I had to fashion him over again. But now it is done.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
He loves little who loves by rule.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Poverty of goods is easily cured poverty of soul, impossible.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
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
Image
There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience…These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us it is the only payment that can never fail. “On Repentance
Michel de Montaigne
Image
There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.
Michel de Montaigne