Quote

Books are pleasant, but if by being over-studious we impair our health and spoil our good humour, two of the best things we have, let us give it over. I, for my part, am one of those who think no fruit derived from them can recompense so great a loss.

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
Thinking
Give
Humour
Best
Pleasant
Book
Fruit
Giving
Loss
Impair
Great
Health
Studious
Good
Books
Recompense
Things
Two
Derived
Think
Part
Spoil

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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The religion of my doctor or my lawyer cannot matter. That consideration has nothing in common with the functions of the friendship they owe me.
Michel de Montaigne
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We call comeliness a mischance in the first respect, which belongs principally to the face.
Michel de Montaigne
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Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.
Michel de Montaigne
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A wise man loses nothing, if he but save himself.
Michel de Montaigne
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After mature deliberation of counsel, the good Queen to establish a rule and immutable example unto all posterity, for the moderation and required modesty in a lawful marriage, ordained the number of six times a day as a lawful, necessary and competent limit.
Michel de Montaigne
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So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination... And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation.
Michel de Montaigne
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'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
Michel de Montaigne
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The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.
Michel de Montaigne
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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.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
Michel de Montaigne
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Words repeated again have as another sound, so another sense.
Michel de Montaigne
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Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is only reasonable to allow the administration of affairs to mothers before their children reach the age prescribed by law at which they themselves can be responsible. But that father would have reared them ill who could not hope that in their maturity they would have more wisdom and competence than his wife.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every man has within himself the entire human condition
Michel de Montaigne
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Every abridgement of a good book is a fool abridged.
Michel de Montaigne
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To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value, is pusillanimity and cowardice.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
Michel de Montaigne