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Is there a polity better ordered, the offices better distributed, and more inviolably observed and maintained, than that of bees?

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
Insects
Observed
Bees
Office
Polity
Better
Distributed
Offices
Maintained
Ordered

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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The great and glorious masterpiece of humanity is to know how to live with a purpose.
Michel de Montaigne
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The good, supreme, divine poetry is above the rules and reason. Whoever discerns its beauty with a firm, sedate gaze does not see it, any more than he sees the splendor of a lightning flash. It does not persuade our judgement, it ravishes and overwhelms it.
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Those who make a practice of comparing human actions are never so perplexed as when they try to see them as a whole and in the same light for they commonly contradict each other so strangely that it seems impossible that they have come from the same shop.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is for little souls, that truckle under the weight of affairs, not to know how clearly to disengage themselves, and not to know how to lay them aside and take them up again.
Michel de Montaigne
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If I am to serve as an instrument of deceit, at least let it be with a clear conscience. I do not want to be considered either so affectionate or so loyal a servant as to be found fit to betray anyone.
Michel de Montaigne
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Men are tormented by the opinions they have of things, and not the things themselves.
Michel de Montaigne
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I do not teach. I relate.
Michel de Montaigne
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Our speech has its weaknesses and its defects, like all the rest. Most of the occasions for the troubles of the world are grammatical.
Michel de Montaigne
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My errors are by now natural and incorrigible but the good that worthy men do the public by making themselves imitable, I shall perhaps do by making myself evitable.
Michel de Montaigne
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Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people.
Michel de Montaigne
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Time steals away without any inconvenience.
Michel de Montaigne
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When I quote others I do so in order to express my own ideas more clearly.
Michel de Montaigne
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Who feareth to suffer suffereth already, because he feareth.
Michel de Montaigne
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A well-bred man is always sociable and complaisant.
Michel de Montaigne
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When we have got it, we want something else.
Michel de Montaigne
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All of the days go toward death and the last one arrives there.
Michel de Montaigne
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Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary.
Michel de Montaigne
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My trade and art is to live.
Michel de Montaigne
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All the opinions in the world point out that pleasure is our aim.
Michel de Montaigne
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Obstinacy and dogmatism are the surest signs of stupidity. Is there anything more confident, resolute, disdainful, grave and serious than an ass?
Michel de Montaigne