Quote

Aesop, that great man, saw his master making water as he walked. What! he said, Must we void ourselves as we run? Use our timeas best we may, yet a great part of it will still be idly and ill spent.

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
Still
Behavior
Aesop
Body
Saws
Idly
May
Water
Void
Best
Making
Walked
Must
Use
Ill
Great
Running
Master
Men
Stills
Spent
Time
Part
Masters

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favorably and well in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life to alleviate the sense of them.
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He who lives not to others, lives little to himself.
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I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
Michel de Montaigne
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Can anything be imagined so ridiculous that this miserable and wretched creature, who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole?
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To make a crooked stick straight, we bend it the contrary way.
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A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom.
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A wellborn mind that is practiced in dealing with people makes itself thoroughly agreeable by itself. Art is nothing else but thelist and record of the productions of such minds.
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There is nothing on which men are commonly more intent than on making a way for their opinions.
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The beginnings of all things are weak and tender. We must therefore be clear-sighted in the beginnings, for, as in their budding we discern not the danger, so in their full growth we perceive not the remedy.
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There is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy.
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The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is an absolute perfection... to get the very most out of one's individuality.
Michel de Montaigne
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Who is only good that others may know it, and that he may be the better esteemed when 'tis known, who will do well but upon condition that his virtue may be known to men, is one from whom much service is not to be expected.
Michel de Montaigne
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How often, being moved under a false cause, if the person offending makes a good defense and presents us with a just excuse, are we angry against truth and innocence itself?
Michel de Montaigne
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We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game.
Michel de Montaigne
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The honor we receive from those that fear us, is not honor those respects are paid to royalty and not to me.
Michel de Montaigne
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Who ever saw a doctor use the prescription of his colleague without cutting out or adding something?
Michel de Montaigne
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The strength of any plan depends on the time. Circumstances and things eternally shift and change.
Michel de Montaigne
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Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.
Michel de Montaigne
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I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.
Michel de Montaigne