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Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance.
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
Eloquence
Substance
Leaves
Shame
Taste
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)
Michel de Montaigne
An orator of past times declared that his calling was to make small things appear to be grand.
Michel de Montaigne
We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others.
Michel de Montaigne
I am much afraid that we shall have very greatly hastened the decline and ruin of the New World by our contagion, and that we willhave sold it our opinions and our arts very dear.
Michel de Montaigne
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
Michel de Montaigne
Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it.
Michel de Montaigne
Those that will combat use and custom by the strict rules of grammar do but jest
Michel de Montaigne
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
Michel de Montaigne
I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.
Michel de Montaigne
It is an injustice that an old, broken, half-dead father should enjoy alone, in a corner of his hearth, possessions that would suffice for the advancement and maintenance of many children.
Michel de Montaigne
We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say?
Michel de Montaigne
If faces were not alike, we could not distinguish men from beasts if they were not different, we could not tell one man from another.
Michel de Montaigne
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.
Michel de Montaigne
I do not portray the thing in itself. I portray the passage not a passing from one age to another, or, as the people put it, from seven years to seven years, but from day to day, from minute to minute.
Michel de Montaigne
All of the days go toward death and the last one arrives there.
Michel de Montaigne
God defend me from being an honest man according to the description which every day I see made by each man to his own glorification
Michel de Montaigne
We wake sleeping, and sleep waking. I do not see so clearly in my sleep but as to my being awake, I never found it clear enough and free from clouds.
Michel de Montaigne
Women are not altogether in the wrong when they refuse the rules of life prescribed to the World, for men only have established them and without their consent.
Michel de Montaigne
Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so.
Michel de Montaigne
All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.
Michel de Montaigne
