Quote

I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.

Michel de Montaigne

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
May
Accommodate
Must
Intention
Hour
Fortune
Hours
History
Also
Change
Presently

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

Image
A woman is no sooner ours than we are no longer hers.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
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
Image
Disappointment and feebleness imprint upon us a cowardly and valetudinarian virtue.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
And to bring in a new word by the head and shoulders, they leave out the old one.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The height and value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise so far from difficulty, that boys, as well as men, and the innocent as well as the subtle, may make it their own and it is by order and good conduct, and not by force, that it is to be acquired.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
A hair shirt does not always render those chaste who wear it.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Once you have decided to keep a certain pile, it is no longer yours for you can't spend it.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Take care that old age does not wrinkle your spirit even more than your face.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
My errors are by now natural and incorrigible but the good that worthy men do the public by making themselves imitable, I shall perhaps do by making myself evitable.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
In my opinion, every rich man is a miser.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Saying is one thing and doing is another
Michel de Montaigne
Image
A volunteer, you assign yourself specific roles and risks according to your judgement of their brilliance and importance, and you see when life itself may be justifiably devoted to them.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
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
Image
It is fear that I stand most in fear of, in sharpness it exceeds every other feeling.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it.
Michel de Montaigne