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It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance.

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
Disaster
Stubbornness
Satisfied
Dissatisfied
Joy
Sends
Wisdom
Assurance
Away
Fearful
Always
Host
Whereas
Forbids
Fill
Hosts

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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The body enjoys a great share in our being, and has an eminent place in it. Its structure and composition, therefore, are worthy of proper consideration.
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If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was I.
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After mature deliberation of counsel, the good Queen to establish a rule and immutable example unto all posterity, for the moderation and required modesty in a lawful marriage, ordained the number of six times a day as a lawful, necessary and competent limit.
Michel de Montaigne
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Socrates, who was a perfect model in all great qualities, ... hit on a body and face so ugly and so incongruous with the beauty of his soul, he who was so madly in love with beauty.
Michel de Montaigne
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This notion [skepticism] is more clearly understood by asking What do I know?
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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Our own peculiar human condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh.
Michel de Montaigne
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We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.
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A wise man loses nothing, if he but save himself.
Michel de Montaigne
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Human understanding is marvellously enlightened by daily conversation with men, for we are, otherwise, compressed and heaped up in ourselves, and have our sight limited to the length of our own noses.
Michel de Montaigne
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Socrates and then Archesilaus used to make their pupils speak first they spoke afterwards. 'Obest plerumque iss discere volunt authoritas eorum qui docent.' [For those who want to learn, the obstacle can often be the authority of those who teach]
Michel de Montaigne
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Satiety comes of too frequent repetition and he who will not give himself leisure to be thirsty can never find the true pleasure of drinking
Michel de Montaigne
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All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own.
Michel de Montaigne
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Words repeated again have as another sound, so another sense.
Michel de Montaigne
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To philosophize is nothing else than to prepare oneself for death.
Michel de Montaigne
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Men are tormented by the opinions they have of things, and not the things themselves.
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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The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.
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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I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.
Michel de Montaigne