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Every abridgement of a good book is a fool abridged.
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
Abridged
Fool
Book
Every
Good
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write.
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
Everyone gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.
Michel de Montaigne
I do not teach. I relate.
Michel de Montaigne
We find ourselves more taken with the running up and down, the games, and puerile simplicities of our children, than we do, afterward, with their most complete actions as if we had loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men.
Michel de Montaigne
We are more unhappy to see people ahead of us than happy to see people behind us.
Michel de Montaigne
It is only reasonable to allow the administration of affairs to mothers before their children reach the age prescribed by law at which they themselves can be responsible. But that father would have reared them ill who could not hope that in their maturity they would have more wisdom and competence than his wife.
Michel de Montaigne
I do not portray the thing in itself. I portray the passage not a passing from one age to another, or, as the people put it, from seven years to seven years, but from day to day, from minute to minute.
Michel de Montaigne
Learning must not only lodge with us: we must marry her.
Michel de Montaigne
When I quote others I do so in order to express my own ideas more clearly.
Michel de Montaigne
My library is my kingdom, and here I try to make my rule absolute-shutting off this single nook from wife, daughter and society. Elsewhere I have only a verbal authority, and vague. Unhappy is the man, in my opinion, who has no spot at home where he can be at home to himself-to court himself and hide away.
Michel de Montaigne
Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.
Michel de Montaigne
A wise man loses nothing, if he but save himself.
Michel de Montaigne
The beginnings of all things are weak and tender. We must therefore be clear-sighted in the beginnings, for, as in their budding we discern not the danger, so in their full growth we perceive not the remedy.
Michel de Montaigne
Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.
Michel de Montaigne
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
A man must always study, but he must not always go to school: what a contemptible thing is an old abecedarian!
Michel de Montaigne
Difficulty is a coin the learned make use of like jugglers, to conceal the inanity of their art.
Michel de Montaigne
An orator of past times declared that his calling was to make small things appear to be grand.
Michel de Montaigne
Virtue shuns ease as a companion. It demands a rough and thorny path.
Michel de Montaigne
