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We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn.

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
Cannot
Believe
Disbelieve
Condemn
Double

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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There is nothing so extreme that is not allowed by the custom of some nation or other.
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Marriage can be compared to a cage: birds outside it despair to enter, and birds within, to escape.
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It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
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Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.
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We should spread joy, but, as far as we can, repress sorrow.
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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.
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I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.
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There is no doubt that Greek and Latin are great and handsome ornaments, but we buy them too dear.
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No wonder, said an Ancient, that chance has so much power over us, since it is by chance that we live.
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It is an absolute perfection... to get the very most out of one's individuality.
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There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
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Every day I hear stupid people say things that are not stupid.
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The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles.
Michel de Montaigne
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If these Essays were worthy of being judged, it might fall out, in my opinion, that they would not find much favour, either with common and vulgar minds, or with uncommon and eminent ones: the former would not find enough in them, the latter would find too much they might manage to live somewhere in the middle region.
Michel de Montaigne
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Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.
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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Our skin is provided as adequately as theirs with endurance against the assaults of the weather: witness so many nations who have not yet tried the use of any clothes. Our ancient Gauls wore hardly any clothes nor do the Irish, our neighbors, under so cold a sky.
Michel de Montaigne
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I had rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory.
Michel de Montaigne
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Whoever will imagine a perpetual confession of ignorance, a judgment without leaning or inclination, on any occasion whatever, hasa conception of Pyrrhonism.
Michel de Montaigne
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I admire the assurance and confidence everyone has in himself, whereas there is hardly anything I am sure I know or that I dare give my word I can do.
Michel de Montaigne