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One should always have one's boots on and be ready to leave.

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
Ready
Death
Always
Boots
Leave

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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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.
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Men ... are not agreed about any one thing, not even that heaven is over our heads.
Michel de Montaigne
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The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles.
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We may so seize on virtue, that if we embrace it with an overgreedy and violent desire, it may become vicious.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is the rule of rules, and the general law of all laws, that every person should observe those of the place where he is.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is easier to sacrifice great than little things.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is no doubt that Greek and Latin are great and handsome ornaments, but we buy them too dear.
Michel de Montaigne
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Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance.
Michel de Montaigne
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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
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There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
Michel de Montaigne
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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
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The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.
Michel de Montaigne
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I must use these great men's virtues as a cloak for my weakness.
Michel de Montaigne
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Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.
Michel de Montaigne
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We are more unhappy to see people ahead of us than happy to see people behind us.
Michel de Montaigne
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The world always looks straights ahead as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others...they always go forward as for me, I roll about in myself.
Michel de Montaigne
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Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is an injustice that an old, broken, half-dead father should enjoy alone, in a corner of his hearth, possessions that would suffice for the advancement and maintenance of many children.
Michel de Montaigne
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The common notions that we find in credit around us and infused into our souls by our fathers' seed, these seem to be the universal and natural ones. Whence it comes to pass that what is off the hinges of custom, people believe to be off the hinges of reason.
Michel de Montaigne