Quote

Princes give mee sufficiently, if they take nothing from me, and doe me much good, if they doe me no hurt: it is all I require of them.

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
Giving
Princes
Much
Royalty
Good
Sufficiently
Require
Hurt
Give
Nothing
Take

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

Image
The world is but a perpetual see-saw.
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
In true friendship, in which I am expert, I give myself to my friend more than I draw him to me. I not only like doing him good better than having him do me good, but also would rather have him do good to himself than to me he does me most good when he does himself good.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The finest lives in my opinion are the common model, without miracle and without extravagance.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgments.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The world is but a school of inquisition it is not who shall enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses.
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
He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Satiety comes of too frequent repetition and he who will not give himself leisure to be thirsty can never find the true pleasure of drinking
Michel de Montaigne
Image
In order always to learn something from others (which is the finest school there can be), I observe in my travels this practice: I always steer those with whom I talk back to the things they know best.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Difficulty is a coin the learned make use of like jugglers, to conceal the inanity of their art.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Teach him a certain refinement in sorting out and selecting his arguments, with an affection for relevance and so for brevity. Above all let him be taught to throw down his arms and surrender to truth as soon as he perceives it, whether the truth is born at his rival's doing or within himself from some change in his ideas.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Lay a beam between these two towers of such width as we need to walk on: there is no philosophical wisdom of such great firmness that it can give us courage to walk on it as we should if it were on the ground.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Some, either from being glued to vice by a natural attachment, or from long habit, no longer recognize its ugliness.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Socrates thought and so do I that the wisest theory about the gods is no theory at all.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
It is the part of cowardice, not of courage, to go and crouch in a hole under a massive tomb, to avoid the blows of fortune.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
My home...It is my retreat and resting place from wars, I try to keep this corner as a haven against the tempest outside, as I do another corner in my soul.
Michel de Montaigne