Quote

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

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

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

Image
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
After a tongue has once got the knack of lying, it is not to be imagined how impossible almost it is to reclaim it. Whence it comes to pass, that we see some men, who are otherwise very honest, so subject to this vice.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
When I am attached by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
To smell, though well, is to stink.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
I do not correct my first imaginings by my second--well, yes, perhaps a word or so, but only to vary, not to delete. I want to represent the course of my humors and I want people to see each part at its birth.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The only thing certain is nothing is certain.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything, to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
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.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The world always looks straights ahead as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others...they always go forward as for me, I roll about in myself.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Necessity is a violent school-mistress.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Others form man I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed, whom I should really make very different from whathe is if I had to fashion him over again. But now it is done.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
There is a plague on Man, the opinion that he knows something.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The continuous work of our life is to build death.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Our own peculiar human condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
My library is my kingdom, and here I try to make my rule absolute-shutting off this single nook from wife, daughter and society. Elsewhere I have only a verbal authority, and vague. Unhappy is the man, in my opinion, who has no spot at home where he can be at home to himself-to court himself and hide away.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The pleasure we hold in esteem for the course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our time dedicated to it we should refuse no occasion nor omit any opportunity of drinking, and always have it in our minds.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Glory consists of two parts: the one in setting too great a value upon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The worth of the mind consisteth not in going high, but in marching orderly.
Michel de Montaigne