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Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people.
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
Wisdom
Adaptability
Funny
Foolishness
Cannot
Adapt
People
Foolish
Humility
Fool
Humor
Wise
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself.
Michel de Montaigne
Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget.
Michel de Montaigne
Nothing else but an insatiate thirst of enjoying a greedily desired object.
Michel de Montaigne
Plenty and indigence depend upon the opinion every one has of them and riches, like glory of health, have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleaded to lend them.
Michel de Montaigne
If others examined themselves attentively, as I do, they would find themselves, as I do, full of inanity and nonsense. Get rid of it I cannot without getting rid of myself.
Michel de Montaigne
The human face is a weak guarantee yet it deserves some consideration. And if I had to whip the wicked, I would do so more severely to those who belied and betrayed the promises that nature had implanted on their brows I would punish malice more harshly when it was hidden under a kindly appearance.
Michel de Montaigne
Men are tormented by the opinions they have of things, and not the things themselves.
Michel de Montaigne
The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.
Michel de Montaigne
Men ... are not agreed about any one thing, not even that heaven is over our heads.
Michel de Montaigne
I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
Michel de Montaigne
The world is but a perennial movement. All things in it are in constant motion-the earth, the rocks of the Caucasus, the pyramids of Egypt-both with the common motion and with their own.
Michel de Montaigne
The relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them.
Michel de Montaigne
Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again.
Michel de Montaigne
Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest.
Michel de Montaigne
God is favorable to those whom he makes to die by degrees 'tis the only benefit of old age. The last death will be so much the less painful: it will kill but a quarter of a man or but half a one at most.
Michel de Montaigne
Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything, to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever.
Michel de Montaigne
The world always looks straights ahead as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others...they always go forward as for me, I roll about in myself.
Michel de Montaigne
In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word.
Michel de Montaigne
We are born to inquire after truth it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.
Michel de Montaigne
Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover he only beats the water for another's net.
Michel de Montaigne
