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Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head.

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
Men
Also
Choose
Care
Learned
Able
Learning
Urge
Wells
Head
Urges
Well
Justice
Guide
Made
Since
Guides
Make
Taken
Diversity
Would
Rather
Filled

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.
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I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it.
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Wisdom has its excesses, and has no less need of moderation than folly.
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If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.
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The religion of my doctor or my lawyer cannot matter. That consideration has nothing in common with the functions of the friendship they owe me.
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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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Poverty of goods is easily cured poverty of soul, impossible.
Michel de Montaigne
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The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.
Michel de Montaigne
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Learning must not only lodge with us: we must marry her.
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Obstinacy and contention are common qualities, most appearing in, and best becoming, a mean and illiterate soul.
Michel de Montaigne
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If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.
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Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.
Michel de Montaigne
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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
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Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in show, like the statue of a public place.
Michel de Montaigne
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The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbors, causeth a war to follow between Princes.
Michel de Montaigne
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Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
Michel de Montaigne
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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
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In order always to learn something from others (which is the finest school there can be), I observe in my travels this practice: I always steer those with whom I talk back to the things they know best.
Michel de Montaigne
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Women when they marry buy a cat in the bag.
Michel de Montaigne
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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