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I consider it equal injustice to set our heart against natural pleasures and to set our heart too much on them. We should neither pursue them, nor flee them we should accept them.

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
Natural
Injustice
Heart
Pursue
Much
Consider
Neither
Accept
Equal
Accepting
Flee
Pleasure
Pleasures

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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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Poverty of goods is easily cured poverty of soul, impossible.
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He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying.
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I see this evident, that we willingly accord to piety only the services that flatter our passions.
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Nothing else but an insatiate thirst of enjoying a greedily desired object.
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He that had never seen a river imagined the first he met to be the sea and the greatest things that have fallen within our knowledge we conclude the extremes that nature makes of the kind.
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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 strong imagination begetteth opportunity.
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If health and a fair day smile upon me, I am a very good fellow if a corn trouble my toe, I am sullen, out of humor, and inaccessible.
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Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.
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It is very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of it.
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It is probable that the principal credit of miracles, visions, enchantments, and such extraordinary occurrences comes from the power of imagination, acting principally upon the minds of the common people, which are softer.
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Our speech has its weaknesses and its defects, like all the rest. Most of the occasions for the troubles of the world are grammatical.
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A man should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey, and above all things look he have then nothing to do but with himself.
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I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but careless of death, and still more of my unfinished garden.
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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!
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The finest lives in my opinion are the common model, without miracle and without extravagance.
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The great and glorious masterpiece of humanity is to know how to live with a purpose.
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No man dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours, than that which was before your birth, and concerneth you no more.
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