Quote

The great and glorious masterpiece of men is to live to the point. All other things-to reign, to hoard, to build-are, at most, but inconsiderable props and appendages.

Michel de Montaigne

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Point
Appendages
Live
Inconsiderable
Hoard
Great
Props
Things
Masterpiece
Men
Reign
Glorious
Build

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

Image
We have so much ill fortune as inconstancy, or so much bad purpose as folly, we are not so full of evil as we are of inanity we are not so wretched as we are base
Michel de Montaigne
Image
We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The finest lives in my opinion are the common model, without miracle and without extravagance.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The plague of man is the opinion of knowledge. That is why ignorance is so recommended by our religion as a quality suitable to belief and obedience.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Socrates, who was a perfect model in all great qualities, ... hit on a body and face so ugly and so incongruous with the beauty of his soul, he who was so madly in love with beauty.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Long life, and short, are by death made all one for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
There never were, in the world, two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains the most universal quality is diversity.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Have you been able to think out and manage your own life? You have done the greatest task of all.... All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
A person is bound to lose when he talks about himself if he belittles himself, he is believed if he praises himself, he isn't believed.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
If not for that of conscience, yet at least for ambition's sake, let us reject ambition, let us disdain that thirst of honor and renown, so low and mendicant that it makes us beg it of all sorts of people.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Words repeated again have as another sound, so another sense.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them if they will not apply themselves to me.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
I love a friendship that flatters itself in the sharpness and vigor of its communications.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
It is not my deeds that I write down, it is myself, my essence.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Wisdom is a solid and entire building, of which every piece keeps its place and bears its mark.
Michel de Montaigne