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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
Beauty
Prefer
Talk
Table
Pleasant
Tables
Bed
Goodness
Grave
Conversation
Witty
Learned
Graves
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.
Michel de Montaigne
The land of marriage has this peculiarity: that strangers are desirous of inhabiting it, while its natural inhabitants would willingly be banished from thence.
Michel de Montaigne
A man should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey, and above all things look he have then nothing to do but with himself.
Michel de Montaigne
Whatever can be done another day can be done today.
Michel de Montaigne
Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything, to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever.
Michel de Montaigne
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
Michel de Montaigne
The world is but a school of inquisition it is not who shall enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses.
Michel de Montaigne
One man may have some special knowledge at first-hand about the character of a river or a spring, who otherwise knows only what everyone else knows. Yet to give currency to this shred of information, he will undertake to write on the whole science of physics. From this fault many great troubles spring.
Michel de Montaigne
Long life, and short, are by death made all one for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.
Michel de Montaigne
Dreams are faithful interpreters of our inclinations but there is art required to sort and understand them.
Michel de Montaigne
Things seem greater by imagination than they are in effect.
Michel de Montaigne
Learning is a good medicine: but no medicine is powerful enough to preserve itself from taint and corruption independently of defects in the jar that it is kept in. One man sees clearly but does not see straight: consequently he sees what is good but fails to follow it he sees knowledge and does not use 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
Some impose upon the world that they believe that which they do not others, more in number, make themselves believe that they believe, not being able to penetrate into what it is to believe.
Michel de Montaigne
The human face is a weak guarantee yet it deserves some consideration. And if I had to whip the wicked, I would do so more severely to those who belied and betrayed the promises that nature had implanted on their brows I would punish malice more harshly when it was hidden under a kindly appearance.
Michel de Montaigne
Princes give mee sufficiently, if they take nothing from me, and doe me much good, if they doe me no hurt: it is all I require of them.
Michel de Montaigne
Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in show, like the statue of a public place.
Michel de Montaigne
We are all of us richer than we think we are but we are taught to borrow and to beg, and brought up more to make use of what is another's than of our own.
Michel de Montaigne
Books are pleasant, but if by being over-studious we impair our health and spoil our good humour, two of the best things we have, let us give it over. I, for my part, am one of those who think no fruit derived from them can recompense so great a loss.
Michel de Montaigne
Gentleness and repose are paramount to everything else in woman.
Michel de Montaigne
