Quote

We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others.

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
Kind
Bittersweet
Malicious
Contemplating
Misfortunes
Delight
Others
Feel
Feels
Pricking

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Beauty is the true prerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that our sex, though naturally requiring another sort of feature, is never in its lustre but when puerile and beardless, confused and mixed with theirs.
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... whoever believes anything esteems that it is a work of charity to persuade another of it.
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There is a certain amount of purpose, acquiescence, and satisfaction in nursing one's melancholy.
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A man has need of tough ears to hear himself fairly judged.
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Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.
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The first lessons with which we should irrigate his mind should be those which teach him to know himself, and to know how to die ... and to live.
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It is not necessity but abundance which produces greed.
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Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm or a flea and yet will create Gods by the dozen!
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The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbors, causeth a war to follow between Princes.
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A foreign war is a lot milder than a civil war.
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There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them.
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In order always to learn something from others (which is the finest school there can be), I observe in my travels this practice: I always steer those with whom I talk back to the things they know best.
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It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many.
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There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
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Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.
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I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.
Michel de Montaigne
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I seek in the reading of books, only to please myself, by an honest diversion.
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Everyone gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.
Michel de Montaigne
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Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people.
Michel de Montaigne
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Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to.
Michel de Montaigne