Quote

Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again.

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
Virtue
Purpose
Away
Cannot
Borrows
Sometimes
Presently
Pulls
Followed
Mask

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Nature has, herself, I fear, imprinted in man a kind of instinct to inhumanity.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is not without good reason, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.
Michel de Montaigne
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We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn.
Michel de Montaigne
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Who ever saw a doctor use the prescription of his colleague without cutting out or adding something?
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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The most useful and honorable science and occupation for a woman is the science of housekeeping. I know some that are miserly, very few that are good managers.
Michel de Montaigne
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... whoever believes anything esteems that it is a work of charity to persuade another of it.
Michel de Montaigne
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Wisdom has its excesses, and has no less need of moderation than folly.
Michel de Montaigne
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Men ... are not agreed about any one thing, not even that heaven is over our heads.
Michel de Montaigne
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We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others.
Michel de Montaigne
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Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
Michel de Montaigne
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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.
Michel de Montaigne
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I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
Michel de Montaigne
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Ambition is, of all other, the most contrary humor to solitude and glory and repose are so inconsistent that they cannot possibly inhabit one and the same place and for so much as I understand, those have only their arms and legs disengaged from the crowd, their mind and intention remain engaged behind more than ever.
Michel de Montaigne
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We hold death, poverty, and grief for our principal enemies but this death, which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful things, who does not know that others call it the only secure harbor from the storm and tempests of life, the sovereign good of nature, the sole support of liberty, and the common and sudden remedy of all evils?
Michel de Montaigne
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We are born to inquire after truth it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.
Michel de Montaigne
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The great and glorious masterpiece of men is to live to the point. All other things-to reign, to hoard, to build-are, at most, but inconsiderable props and appendages.
Michel de Montaigne
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He who falls obstinate in his courage, if he falls he fights from his knees.
Michel de Montaigne
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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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People of our time are so formed for agitation and ostentation that goodness, moderation, equability, constancy, and such quiet and obscure qualities are no longer felt.
Michel de Montaigne