Quote

Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.

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
Time
Highest
Imitation
Doors
Instruction
Example
Benefit
Science
Opening
Others
Worthy
Character
Door
Derive
Anything
Benefits
Enabling
May
Importance
Courtesy

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.
Michel de Montaigne
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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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I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that tied them together.
Michel de Montaigne
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A man may be humble through vainglory.
Michel de Montaigne
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That is why Bias jested with those who were going through the perils of a great storm with him and calling on the gods for help: Shut up, he said, so that they do not realize that you are here with me.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is no hard matter to get children but after they are born, then begins the trouble, solicitude, and care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up.
Michel de Montaigne
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We have power over nothing except our will.
Michel de Montaigne
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Nothing else but an insatiate thirst of enjoying a greedily desired object.
Michel de Montaigne
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Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are found and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing.
Michel de Montaigne
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Whatever the Benefits of Fortune are , they yet require a Palate fit to relish and taste them 'Tis Fruition, and not Possession, that renders us Happy.
Michel de Montaigne
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Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.
Michel de Montaigne
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Travelling through the world produces a marvellous clarity in the judgment of men. We are all of us confined and enclosed within ourselves, and see no farther than the end of our nose.
Michel de Montaigne
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Fortune does us neither good nor hurt she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition.
Michel de Montaigne
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Socrates and then Archesilaus used to make their pupils speak first they spoke afterwards. 'Obest plerumque iss discere volunt authoritas eorum qui docent.' [For those who want to learn, the obstacle can often be the authority of those who teach]
Michel de Montaigne
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Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.
Michel de Montaigne
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We are nearer neighbors to ourselves than the whiteness of snow or the weight of stones are to us: if man does not know himself, how should he know his functions and powers?
Michel de Montaigne
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There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.
Michel de Montaigne
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Friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules and sways with an absolute sovereignty, can admit of no rival.
Michel de Montaigne
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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.
Michel de Montaigne
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No man dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours, than that which was before your birth, and concerneth you no more.
Michel de Montaigne