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He who lives not to others, lives little to himself.
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
Lives
Others
Littles
Little
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
The shortest way to arrive at glory should be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. And the virtue of Alexander appears to me with much less vigor in his theater than that of Socrates in his mean and obscure. I can easily conceive Socrates in the place of Alexander, but Alexander in that of Socrates I cannot.
Michel de Montaigne
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
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.
Michel de Montaigne
If love and ambition should be in equal balance, and come to jostle with equal force, I make no doubt but that the last would win the prize.
Michel de Montaigne
Learning is a good medicine: but no medicine is powerful enough to preserve itself from taint and corruption independently of defects in the jar that it is kept in. One man sees clearly but does not see straight: consequently he sees what is good but fails to follow it he sees knowledge and does not use it.
Michel de Montaigne
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
Michel de Montaigne
Obstinacy and dogmatism are the surest signs of stupidity. Is there anything more confident, resolute, disdainful, grave and serious than an ass?
Michel de Montaigne
The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.
Michel de Montaigne
In my youth I studied for ostentation later, a little to gain wisdom now, for recreation never for gain.
Michel de Montaigne
There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
Michel de Montaigne
Dreams are faithful interpreters of our inclinations but there is art required to sort and understand them.
Michel de Montaigne
I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.
Michel de Montaigne
'As a man who knows how to make his education into a rule of life not a means of showing off who can control himself and obey his own principles.' The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives.
Michel de Montaigne
Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant.
Michel de Montaigne
Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to.
Michel de Montaigne
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
Michel de Montaigne
We call comeliness a mischance in the first respect, which belongs principally to the face.
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
Nor is it enough to toughen up his soul you must also toughen up his muscles.
Michel de Montaigne
We are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak.
Michel de Montaigne