Quote

If I am to serve as an instrument of deceit, at least let it be with a clear conscience. I do not want to be considered either so affectionate or so loyal a servant as to be found fit to betray anyone.

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
Conscience
Betray
Either
Loyal
Least
Instrument
Anyone
Servant
Clear
Considered
Found
Instruments
Serve
Affectionate
Fit
Deceit

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
All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty and good-nature
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The most unhappy and frail creatures are men and yet they are the proudest.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets?
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbors, causeth a war to follow between Princes.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
It is far more probable that our senses should deceive us, than that an old woman should be carried up a chimney on a broom stick and that it is far less astonishing that witnesses should lie, than that witches should perform the acts that were alleged.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
It is not my deeds that I write down, it is myself, my essence.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
I have seen people rude by being over-polite.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Our skin is provided as adequately as theirs with endurance against the assaults of the weather: witness so many nations who have not yet tried the use of any clothes. Our ancient Gauls wore hardly any clothes nor do the Irish, our neighbors, under so cold a sky.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss his accusations of himself are always believed his praises never.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
If I were of the trade, I should naturalize art as much as they artialize nature.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
How often, being moved under a false cause, if the person offending makes a good defense and presents us with a just excuse, are we angry against truth and innocence itself?
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Malice sucks up the greatest part of its own venom, and poisons itself.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.
Michel de Montaigne