Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so.
Michel de Montaigne
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Things
Cowardice
Makes
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
What am I to choose? Choose what you please, as long as you choose. There you have a foolish answer, which seems to be the outcome, however, of all Dogmatism, which will not allow us to be ignorant of that which we are ignorant.
Michel de Montaigne
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
Michel de Montaigne
Poetry reproduces an indefinable mood that is more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful all naked, alive, and panting, as she is here in Virgil.
Michel de Montaigne
A wise man loses nothing, if he but save himself.
Michel de Montaigne
Eloquence is an engine invented to manage and wield at will the fierce democracy, and, like medicine to the sick, is only employed in the paroxysms of a disordered state.
Michel de Montaigne
The world is but a school of inquisition it is not who shall enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses.
Michel de Montaigne
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
In plain Truth, it is no Want, but rather Abundance that creates Avarice.
Michel de Montaigne
I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and reason, as the worst of all the vices. But then I am so soft in this that I cannot seea chicken's neck wrung without distress, and cannot bear to hear the squealing of a hare between the teeth of my hounds.
Michel de Montaigne
And I loathe people who find it harder to put up with a gown askew than with a soul askew and who judge a man by his bow, his bearing and his boots.
Michel de Montaigne
We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled.
Michel de Montaigne
There is no more expensive thing than a free gift.
Michel de Montaigne
Happiness involves working toward meaningful goals.
Michel de Montaigne
I go out of my way, but rather by license than carelessness.... It is the inattentive reader who loses my subject, not I. Some word about it will always be found off in a corner, which will not fail to be sufficient, though it takes little room.
Michel de Montaigne
The world is but a perennial movement. All things in it are in constant motion-the earth, the rocks of the Caucasus, the pyramids of Egypt-both with the common motion and with their own.
Michel de Montaigne
Necessity is a violent school-mistress.
Michel de Montaigne
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
Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition.
Michel de Montaigne
There is a certain consideration, and a general duty of humanity, that binds us not only to the animals, which have life and feeling, but even to the trees and plants. We owe justice to people, and kindness and benevolence to all other creatures who may be susceptible of it. There is some intercourse between them and us, and some mutual obligation.
Michel de Montaigne
There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
Michel de Montaigne
