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It is very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of it.
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
Mortals
Full
Easy
Government
Things
Accuse
Imperfection
Mortal
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
It is not my deeds that I write down, it is myself, my essence.
Michel de Montaigne
Nor is it enough to toughen up his soul you must also toughen up his muscles.
Michel de Montaigne
Poetry reproduces an indefinable mood that is more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful all naked, alive, and panting, as she is here in Virgil.
Michel de Montaigne
And to bring in a new word by the head and shoulders, they leave out the old one.
Michel de Montaigne
To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value, is pusillanimity and cowardice.
Michel de Montaigne
A wise man loses nothing, if he but save himself.
Michel de Montaigne
How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!
Michel de Montaigne
We do not correct the man we hang we correct others by him.
Michel de Montaigne
The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man some contribute treachery, others injustice, atheism, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power.
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
To make a crooked stick straight, we bend it the contrary way.
Michel de Montaigne
What fear has once made me will, I am bound still to will when without fear.
Michel de Montaigne
Fortune does us neither good nor hurt she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition.
Michel de Montaigne
Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.
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
We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there.
Michel de Montaigne
Dreams are faithful interpreters of our inclinations but there is art required to sort and understand them.
Michel de Montaigne
I consider it equal injustice to set our heart against natural pleasures and to set our heart too much on them. We should neither pursue them, nor flee them we should accept them.
Michel de Montaigne
When I am attached by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.
Michel de Montaigne
The reverse side of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and no defined limits.
Michel de Montaigne
