Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
The memory represents to us not what we choose but what it pleases.
Michel de Montaigne
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Memories
Pleases
Represents
Memory
Choose
Please
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
I may indeed very well happen to contradict myself but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict.
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
Is there a polity better ordered, the offices better distributed, and more inviolably observed and maintained, than that of bees?
Michel de Montaigne
We should spread joy, but, as far as we can, repress sorrow.
Michel de Montaigne
I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.
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
As by some might be saide of me: that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange floures, and have put nothing of mine unto it, but the thred to binde them. Certes, I have given unto publike opinion, that these borrowed ornaments accompany me but I meane not they should cover or hide me.
Michel de Montaigne
We are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak.
Michel de Montaigne
Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.
Michel de Montaigne
I do not correct my first imaginings by my second--well, yes, perhaps a word or so, but only to vary, not to delete. I want to represent the course of my humors and I want people to see each part at its birth.
Michel de Montaigne
A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom.
Michel de Montaigne
In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum.
Michel de Montaigne
'As a man who knows how to make his education into a rule of life not a means of showing off who can control himself and obey his own principles.' The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives.
Michel de Montaigne
It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.
Michel de Montaigne
When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing.
Michel de Montaigne
Socrates and then Archesilaus used to make their pupils speak first they spoke afterwards. 'Obest plerumque iss discere volunt authoritas eorum qui docent.' [For those who want to learn, the obstacle can often be the authority of those who teach]
Michel de Montaigne
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them if they will not apply themselves to me.
Michel de Montaigne
To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct.
Michel de Montaigne
Every movement reveals us.
Michel de Montaigne
Every man has within himself the entire human condition
Michel de Montaigne