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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?

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
Less
Ridiculous
Injuries
Part
Master
Emperor
Power
Subject
Wretched
Anything
Masters
Imagined
Whole
Creatures
Creature
Much
Subjects
Injury
Things
Least
Command
World
Call
Miserable

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
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The most unhappy and frail creatures are men and yet they are the proudest.
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Learning is a good medicine: but no medicine is powerful enough to preserve itself from taint and corruption independently of defects in the jar that it is kept in. One man sees clearly but does not see straight: consequently he sees what is good but fails to follow it he sees knowledge and does not use it.
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Gentleness and repose are paramount to everything else in woman.
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Our truth of nowadays is not what is, but what others can be convinced of just as we call money not only that which is legal, but also any counterfeit that will pass.
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Vexations may be petty, but they are vexations still.
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It costs an unreasonable woman no more to pass over one reason than another they cherish themselves most where they are most wrong.
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Almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and on credit.
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O human creature,you are the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and all in all, the fool of the farce.
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All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.
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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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I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.
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The pleasantest things in the world are pleasant thoughts, and the great art of life is to have as many of them as possible.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is a human tendency to measure truth and error by our capacity.
Michel de Montaigne
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No spiritual mind remains within itself it is always aspiring and going beyond its own strength.
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Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.
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Diogenes was asked what wine he liked best and he answered as I would have done when he said, Somebody else's.
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When Socrates, after being relieved of his irons, felt the relish of the itching that their weight had caused in his legs, he rejoiced to consider the close alliance between pain and pleasure.
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We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there.
Michel de Montaigne
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... whoever believes anything esteems that it is a work of charity to persuade another of it.
Michel de Montaigne