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I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.
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
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Things
Ordinarily
Men
Eager
Libertarian
Discover
Knowledge
Whether
Reason
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and reason, as the worst of all the vices. But then I am so soft in this that I cannot seea chicken's neck wrung without distress, and cannot bear to hear the squealing of a hare between the teeth of my hounds.
Michel de Montaigne
To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct.
Michel de Montaigne
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
Michel de Montaigne
Long life, and short, are by death made all one for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.
Michel de Montaigne
One man may have some special knowledge at first-hand about the character of a river or a spring, who otherwise knows only what everyone else knows. Yet to give currency to this shred of information, he will undertake to write on the whole science of physics. From this fault many great troubles spring.
Michel de Montaigne
The relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them.
Michel de Montaigne
We are nearer neighbors to ourselves than the whiteness of snow or the weight of stones are to us: if man does not know himself, how should he know his functions and powers?
Michel de Montaigne
Nothing else but an insatiate thirst of enjoying a greedily desired object.
Michel de Montaigne
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
Philosophical discussions habitually make men happy and joyful not frowning and sad.
Michel de Montaigne
We have power over nothing except our will.
Michel de Montaigne
There is nothing of evil in life for him who rightly comprehends that death is no evil to know how to die delivers us from all subjection and constraint.
Michel de Montaigne
I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it.
Michel de Montaigne
Death pays all debts.
Michel de Montaigne
A man must always study, but he must not always go to school: what a contemptible thing is an old abecedarian!
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
Virtue shuns ease as a companion. It demands a rough and thorny path.
Michel de Montaigne
Gentleness and repose are paramount to everything else in woman.
Michel de Montaigne
We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there.
Michel de Montaigne
This notion [skepticism] is more clearly understood by asking What do I know?
Michel de Montaigne
