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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

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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
Looks
National
Socrates
Men
Universal
Pole
Common
Bond
Upon
Disposition
Less
Excess
Compatriots
Making
Account
Frenchman
Truth
Accounts
Perchance
Look
Embrace
Frenchmen

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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A strong imagination begetteth opportunity.
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True it is that she who escapeth safe and unpolluted from out the school of freedom, giveth more confidence of herself than she who comet sound out of the school of severity and restraint.
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Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the extremest of all vices.
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Authors communicate with the people by some special extrinsic mark I am the first to do so by my entire being, as Michel de Montaigne.
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He that had never seen a river imagined the first he met to be the sea and the greatest things that have fallen within our knowledge we conclude the extremes that nature makes of the kind.
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Not only does the wind of accidents stir me according to its blowing, but I am also stirred and troubled by the instability of my attitude.
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The shortest way to arrive at glory should be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. And the virtue of Alexander appears to me with much less vigor in his theater than that of Socrates in his mean and obscure. I can easily conceive Socrates in the place of Alexander, but Alexander in that of Socrates I cannot.
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There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened.
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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.
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Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.
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The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write.
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We are more unhappy to see people ahead of us than happy to see people behind us.
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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.
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No two men ever judged alike of the same thing, and it is impossible to find two opinions exactly similar, not only in different men but in the same men at different times.
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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.
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The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly.
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Petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. The smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. As small letters weary the eye most, so the smallest affairs disturb us most.
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Can anything be imagined so ridiculous that this miserable and wretched creature, who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole?
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The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.
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The wise man should withdraw his soul within, out of the crowd, and keep it in freedom and power to judge things freely but as for externals, he should wholly follow the accepted fashions and forms.
Michel de Montaigne