Quote

I find no quality so easy for a man to counterfeit as devotion, though his life and manner are not conformable to it the essence of it is abstruse and occult, but the appearances easy and showy.

Michel de Montaigne

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Though
Occult
Easy
Counterfeit
Appearances
Find
Devotion
Men
Manner
Life
Appearance
Conformable
Essence
Abstruse
Quality
Showy

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

Image
As far as I am concerned, no road that would lead us to health is either arduous or expensive.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
After a tongue has once got the knack of lying, it is not to be imagined how impossible almost it is to reclaim it. Whence it comes to pass, that we see some men, who are otherwise very honest, so subject to this vice.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
A liar would be brave toward God, while he is a coward toward men for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Ambition is not a vice of little people.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
No two men ever judged alike of the same thing, and it is impossible to find two opinions exactly similar, not only in different men but in the same men at different times.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
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
Image
The reverse side of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and no defined limits.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
God defend me from myself.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Whatever can be done another day can be done today.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Every one is well or ill at ease, according as he finds himself! not he whom the world believes, but he who believes himself to be so, is content and in him alone belief gives itself being and reality
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgments.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Marriage can be compared to a cage: birds outside it despair to enter, and birds within, to escape.
Michel de Montaigne