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Virtue can have naught to do with ease. . . . It craves a steep and thorny path.
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
Crave
Ease
Virtue
Path
Thorny
Craves
Naught
Steep
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
Nature has, herself, I fear, imprinted in man a kind of instinct to inhumanity.
Michel de Montaigne
If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.
Michel de Montaigne
In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.
Michel de Montaigne
God defend me from myself.
Michel de Montaigne
We seem ambitious God's whole work to undo. ...With new diseases on ourselves we war, And with new physic, a worse engine far.
Michel de Montaigne
We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.
Michel de Montaigne
Men ... are not agreed about any one thing, not even that heaven is over our heads.
Michel de Montaigne
That is why Bias jested with those who were going through the perils of a great storm with him and calling on the gods for help: Shut up, he said, so that they do not realize that you are here with me.
Michel de Montaigne
How often, being moved under a false cause, if the person offending makes a good defense and presents us with a just excuse, are we angry against truth and innocence itself?
Michel de Montaigne
If faces were not alike, we could not distinguish men from beasts if they were not different, we could not tell one man from another.
Michel de Montaigne
Those that will combat use and custom by the strict rules of grammar do but jest
Michel de Montaigne
For a desperate disease a desperate cure.
Michel de Montaigne
Among the liberal arts, let us begin with the art that liberates us.
Michel de Montaigne
Is it not enough to make me come back to life out of spite, to have someone who spat in my face while I existed come and rub my feet when I am beginning to exist no longer?
Michel de Montaigne
Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope, that in a mortal subject, and in a moment, makes nothing of usurping infinity, immensity, eternity, and of supplying its masters indigence, at its pleasure, with all things he can imagine or desire!
Michel de Montaigne
No pleasure is fully delightful without communications, and no delight absolute except imparted.
Michel de Montaigne
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
Michel de Montaigne
The honor we receive from those that fear us, is not honor those respects are paid to royalty and not to me.
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
Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.
Michel de Montaigne
