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There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.

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
Natural
Wish

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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The only thing certain is nothing is certain.
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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The world always looks straights ahead as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others...they always go forward as for me, I roll about in myself.
Michel de Montaigne
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Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it.
Michel de Montaigne
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He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it.
Michel de Montaigne
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The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.
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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The only good histories are those written by those who had command in the events they describe.
Michel de Montaigne
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We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled.
Michel de Montaigne
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The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all they will chew our meat for us.
Michel de Montaigne
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He that is a friend to himself, know he is a friend to all.
Michel de Montaigne
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We do not correct the man we hang we correct others by him.
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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The daughter-in-law of Pythagoras said that a woman who goes to bed with a man ought to lay aside her modesty with her skirt, and put it on again with her petticoat
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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The world is but a perpetual see-saw.
Michel de Montaigne
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Is there anything so grave and serious as an ass?
Michel de Montaigne
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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.
Michel de Montaigne
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The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.
Michel de Montaigne
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Lay a beam between these two towers of such width as we need to walk on: there is no philosophical wisdom of such great firmness that it can give us courage to walk on it as we should if it were on the ground.
Michel de Montaigne