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For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and the grave in bed, beauty before goodness.

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
Talk
Table
Pleasant
Tables
Bed
Goodness
Grave
Conversation
Witty
Learned
Graves
Beauty
Prefer

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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We owe subjection and obedience to all our kings, whether good or bad, alike, for that has respect unto their office but as to esteem and affection, these are only due to their virtue.
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I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.
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If I were of the trade, I should naturalize art as much as they artialize nature.
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It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many.
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A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom.
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The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.
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We have power over nothing except our will.
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I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head.
Michel de Montaigne
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God defend me from myself.
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There is a plague on Man, the opinion that he knows something.
Michel de Montaigne
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I may indeed very well happen to contradict myself but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict.
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So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination... And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation.
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Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me--a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books.
Michel de Montaigne
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Have you known how to take rest? You have done more than he who hath taken empires and cities.
Michel de Montaigne
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I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.
Michel de Montaigne
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The worthiest man to be known, and for a pattern to be presented to the world, he is the man of whom we have most certain knowledge. He hath been declared and enlightened by the most clear-seeing men that ever were the testimonies we have of him are in faithfulness and sufficiency most admirable.
Michel de Montaigne
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We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game.
Michel de Montaigne
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We have so much ill fortune as inconstancy, or so much bad purpose as folly, we are not so full of evil as we are of inanity we are not so wretched as we are base
Michel de Montaigne
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The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.
Michel de Montaigne
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Seeing that the Senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must have recourse to Reason there is no reason but must be built upon another reason: so here we are retreating backwards to infinity.
Michel de Montaigne