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Who is it that does not voluntarily exchange his health, his repose, and his very life for reputation and glory? The most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes current among us.

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
Glory
Coins
Among
Exchange
Health
Passes
Doe
Current
Life
Currents
Voluntarily
Reputation
Coin
Useless
Frivolous
False
Repose

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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The soul that has no established aim loses itself
Michel de Montaigne
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If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.
Michel de Montaigne
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I never met a man who thought his thinking was faulty.
Michel de Montaigne
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It has never occurred to me to wish for empire or royalty, nor for the eminence of those high and commanding fortunes. My aim lies not in that direction I love myself too well.
Michel de Montaigne
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The first distinction among men, and the first consideration that gave one precedence over another, was doubtless the advantage of beauty.
Michel de Montaigne
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[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
Michel de Montaigne
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Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope, that in a mortal subject, and in a moment, makes nothing of usurping infinity, immensity, eternity, and of supplying its masters indigence, at its pleasure, with all things he can imagine or desire!
Michel de Montaigne
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And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets?
Michel de Montaigne
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I may indeed very well happen to contradict myself but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.
Michel de Montaigne
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Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm or a flea and yet will create Gods by the dozen!
Michel de Montaigne
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I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.
Michel de Montaigne
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As by some might be saide of me: that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange floures, and have put nothing of mine unto it, but the thred to binde them. Certes, I have given unto publike opinion, that these borrowed ornaments accompany me but I meane not they should cover or hide me.
Michel de Montaigne
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He that I am reading seems always to have the most force.
Michel de Montaigne
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If my intentions were not to be read in my eyes and voice, I should not have survived so long without quarrels and without harm, seeing the indiscreet freedom with which I say, right or wrong, whatever comes into my head.
Michel de Montaigne
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Reason has so many forms that we do not know which to choose-Experiment has no fewer.
Michel de Montaigne
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Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again.
Michel de Montaigne
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Now, since everything else is furnished with the exact amount of needle and thread required to maintain its being, it is in truth incredible that we alone should be brought into the world in a defective and indigent state, in a state such that we cannot maintain ourselves without external aid.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is not my deeds that I write down, it is myself, my essence.
Michel de Montaigne
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Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people.
Michel de Montaigne