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Great authors, when they write about causes, adduce not only those they think are true but also those they do not believe in, provided they have some originality and beauty. They speak truly and usefully enough if they speak ingeniously.

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
Great
Causes
Writing
Beauty
Ingeniously
Believe
Speak
Usefully
Think
Write
Causality
Thinking
True
Authors
Truth
Originality
Also
Provided
Enough
Truly

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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All opinions in the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end, although they differ as to the means of attaining it.
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We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.
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God defend me from myself.
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Thus we should beware of clinging to vulgar opinions, and judge things by reason's way, not by popular say.
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Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.
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The most universal quality is diversity.
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There is nothing useless in nature not even uselessness itself
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Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget.
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Friendship is a creature formed for a companionship not for a herd.
Michel de Montaigne
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Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.
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Tortures are a dangerous invention, and seem to be a test of endurance rather than of truth.
Michel de Montaigne
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Who feareth to suffer suffereth already, because he feareth.
Michel de Montaigne
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Honesty is a question of right and wrong, not a matter of policy
Michel de Montaigne
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Intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not.
Michel de Montaigne
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We wake sleeping, and sleep waking. I do not see so clearly in my sleep but as to my being awake, I never found it clear enough and free from clouds.
Michel de Montaigne
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Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.
Michel de Montaigne
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Example is a bright looking-glass, universal and for all shapes to look into.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.
Michel de Montaigne
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Marriage can be compared to a cage: birds outside it despair to enter, and birds within, to escape.
Michel de Montaigne
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And obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at least in vigour and stability.
Michel de Montaigne