Quote

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

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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
Nature
Vices
Chicken
Cannot
Pity
Neck
Reason
Teeth
Distress
Squealing
Without
Bear
Chickens
Wrung
Bears
Necks
Cruelly
Hear
Hunting
Hare
Worst
Soft
Hares
Hate
Cruelty
Hounds

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it.
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We seem ambitious God's whole work to undo. ...With new diseases on ourselves we war, And with new physic, a worse engine far.
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Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.
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To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, it is but to run to my books they presently fix me to them, and drive the other out of my thoughts, and do not mutiny to see that I have only recourse to them for want of other more, real, natural, and lively conveniences they always receive me with the same kindness.
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We are all of us richer than we think we are but we are taught to borrow and to beg, and brought up more to make use of what is another's than of our own.
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The body enjoys a great share in our being, and has an eminent place in it. Its structure and composition, therefore, are worthy of proper consideration.
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To smell, though well, is to stink.
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Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.
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The height and value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise so far from difficulty, that boys, as well as men, and the innocent as well as the subtle, may make it their own and it is by order and good conduct, and not by force, that it is to be acquired.
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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.
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A liar would be brave toward God, while he is a coward toward men for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man.
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We find ourselves more taken with the running up and down, the games, and puerile simplicities of our children, than we do, afterward, with their most complete actions as if we had loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men.
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We should be similarly wary of accepting common opinions we should judge them by the ways of reason not by popular vote.
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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?
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But the touch or company of any man whatsoever stirreth up their heat, which in their solitude was hushed and quiet, and lay as cinders raked up in ashes.
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Socrates thought and so do I that the wisest theory about the gods is no theory at all.
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Friendship is the highest degree of perfection in society.
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I may indeed very well happen to contradict myself but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict.
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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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The thing I fear most is fear.
Michel de Montaigne