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Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry the progress, ignorance the end.
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
Ignorance
Progress
Philosophy
Wonder
Ends
Inquiry
Foundation
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
Socrates thought and so do I that the wisest theory about the gods is no theory at all.
Michel de Montaigne
The worthiest man to be known, and for a pattern to be presented to the world, he is the man of whom we have most certain knowledge. He hath been declared and enlightened by the most clear-seeing men that ever were the testimonies we have of him are in faithfulness and sufficiency most admirable.
Michel de Montaigne
I go out of my way, but rather by license than carelessness.... It is the inattentive reader who loses my subject, not I. Some word about it will always be found off in a corner, which will not fail to be sufficient, though it takes little room.
Michel de Montaigne
The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.
Michel de Montaigne
In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.
Michel de Montaigne
I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but careless of death, and still more of my unfinished garden.
Michel de Montaigne
Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.
Michel de Montaigne
Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.
Michel de Montaigne
Our truth of nowadays is not what is, but what others can be convinced of just as we call money not only that which is legal, but also any counterfeit that will pass.
Michel de Montaigne
Off I go, rummaging about in books for sayings which please me.
Michel de Montaigne
If my intentions were not to be read in my eyes and voice, I should not have survived so long without quarrels and without harm, seeing the indiscreet freedom with which I say, right or wrong, whatever comes into my head.
Michel de Montaigne
A wise man loses nothing, if he but save himself.
Michel de Montaigne
Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.
Michel de Montaigne
To distract myself from tiresome thoughts, I have only to resort to books they easily draw my mind to themselves and away from other things.
Michel de Montaigne
Those who make a practice of comparing human actions are never so perplexed as when they try to see them as a whole and in the same light for they commonly contradict each other so strangely that it seems impossible that they have come from the same shop.
Michel de Montaigne
Were I to live my life over again, I should live it just as I have done. I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future.
Michel de Montaigne
Human understanding is marvellously enlightened by daily conversation with men, for we are, otherwise, compressed and heaped up in ourselves, and have our sight limited to the length of our own noses.
Michel de Montaigne
Our own peculiar human condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh.
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
Is it reasonable that even the arts should take advantage of and profit by our natural stupidity and feebleness of mind?
Michel de Montaigne
