Quote

The good, supreme, divine poetry is above the rules and reason. Whoever discerns its beauty with a firm, sedate gaze does not see it, any more than he sees the splendor of a lightning flash. It does not persuade our judgement, it ravishes and overwhelms it.

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
Beauty
Flash
Discerns
Doe
Whoever
Sedate
Reason
Firm
Overwhelms
Good
Sees
Persuade
Supreme
Splendor
Rules
Gaze
Poetry
Judgement
Divine
Lightning

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Teach him a certain refinement in sorting out and selecting his arguments, with an affection for relevance and so for brevity. Above all let him be taught to throw down his arms and surrender to truth as soon as he perceives it, whether the truth is born at his rival's doing or within himself from some change in his ideas.
Michel de Montaigne
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The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.
Michel de Montaigne
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Let us a little permit nature to take her own way she better understands her own affairs than we.
Michel de Montaigne
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Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every one is well or ill at ease, according as he finds himself! not he whom the world believes, but he who believes himself to be so, is content and in him alone belief gives itself being and reality
Michel de Montaigne
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Children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.
Michel de Montaigne
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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
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Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?
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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Whoever will imagine a perpetual confession of ignorance, a judgment without leaning or inclination, on any occasion whatever, hasa conception of Pyrrhonism.
Michel de Montaigne
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We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.
Michel de Montaigne
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The day of your birth leads you to death as well as to life.
Michel de Montaigne
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I look upon the too good opinion that man has of himself, as the nursing mother of all false opinions, both public and private.
Michel de Montaigne
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Our own peculiar human condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh.
Michel de Montaigne
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Those who make a practice of comparing human actions are never so perplexed as when they try to see them as a whole and in the same light for they commonly contradict each other so strangely that it seems impossible that they have come from the same shop.
Michel de Montaigne
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We find ourselves more taken with the running up and down, the games, and puerile simplicities of our children, than we do, afterward, with their most complete actions as if we had loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is a certain amount of purpose, acquiescence, and satisfaction in nursing one's melancholy.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness.
Michel de Montaigne
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I consider myself an average man, except in the fact that I consider myself an average man.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is an absolute perfection... to get the very most out of one's individuality.
Michel de Montaigne