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Every period of life has its peculiar prejudices whoever saw old age, that did not applaud the past, and condemn the present times?

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
Present
Condemn
Age
Prejudices
Times
Peculiar
Past
Whoever
Every
Prejudice
Life
Period
Periods
Saws
Applaud

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly.
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Aesop, that great man, saw his master making water as he walked. What! he said, Must we void ourselves as we run? Use our timeas best we may, yet a great part of it will still be idly and ill spent.
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We should be similarly wary of accepting common opinions we should judge them by the ways of reason not by popular vote.
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To know much is often the cause of doubting more.
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Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass?
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The shortest way to arrive at glory should be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. And the virtue of Alexander appears to me with much less vigor in his theater than that of Socrates in his mean and obscure. I can easily conceive Socrates in the place of Alexander, but Alexander in that of Socrates I cannot.
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Ambition is not a vice of little people.
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Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry the progress, ignorance the end.
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Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.
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.
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A man must not always tell all, for that be folly but what a man says should be what he thinks.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)
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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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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I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.
Michel de Montaigne
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We have power over nothing except our will.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is nothing so extreme that is not allowed by the custom of some nation or other.
Michel de Montaigne
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Examples teach us that in military affairs, and all others of a like nature, study is apt to enervate and relax the courage of man, rather than to give strength and energy to the mind.
Michel de Montaigne
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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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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