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

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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The beginnings of all things are weak and tender. We must therefore be clear-sighted in the beginnings, for, as in their budding we discern not the danger, so in their full growth we perceive not the remedy.
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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There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.
Michel de Montaigne
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Disappointment and feebleness imprint upon us a cowardly and valetudinarian virtue.
Michel de Montaigne
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I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
Michel de Montaigne
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If love and ambition should be in equal balance, and come to jostle with equal force, I make no doubt but that the last would win the prize.
Michel de Montaigne
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It has never occurred to me to wish for empire or royalty, nor for the eminence of those high and commanding fortunes. My aim lies not in that direction I love myself too well.
Michel de Montaigne
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I admire the assurance and confidence everyone has in himself, whereas there is hardly anything I am sure I know or that I dare give my word I can do.
Michel de Montaigne
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Nobody is exempt from saying stupid things, the harm is to do it presumptuously.
Michel de Montaigne
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We cannot fail in following nature.
Michel de Montaigne
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Who ever saw a doctor use the prescription of his colleague without cutting out or adding something?
Michel de Montaigne
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It is fear that I stand most in fear of, in sharpness it exceeds every other feeling.
Michel de Montaigne
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God is favorable to those whom he makes to die by degrees 'tis the only benefit of old age. The last death will be so much the less painful: it will kill but a quarter of a man or but half a one at most.
Michel de Montaigne
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The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man persuades another man to believe.
Michel de Montaigne
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Those that will combat use and custom by the strict rules of grammar do but jest
Michel de Montaigne
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The most certain sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.
Michel de Montaigne
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Whatever I may be, I want to be elsewhere than on paper. My art and my industry have been employed in making myself good for something my studies, in teaching me to do, not to write. I have put all my efforts into forming my life. That is my trade and my work.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.
Michel de Montaigne
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It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many.
Michel de Montaigne
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The world is but a perpetual see-saw.
Michel de Montaigne