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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
Shame
Taste
Eloquence
Substance
Leaves
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.
Michel de Montaigne
To die is not to play a part in society it is the act of a single person. Let us live and laugh among our friends let us die and sulk among strangers.
Michel de Montaigne
It is the part of cowardice, not of courage, to go and crouch in a hole under a massive tomb, to avoid the blows of fortune.
Michel de Montaigne
There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience…These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us it is the only payment that can never fail. “On Repentance
Michel de Montaigne
Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.
Michel de Montaigne
All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own.
Michel de Montaigne
Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me--a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books.
Michel de Montaigne
Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures.
Michel de Montaigne
Our speech has its weaknesses and its defects, like all the rest. Most of the occasions for the troubles of the world are grammatical.
Michel de Montaigne
The memory represents to us not what we choose but what it pleases.
Michel de Montaigne
Fortune does us neither good nor hurt she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition.
Michel de Montaigne
To understand via the heart is not to understand.
Michel de Montaigne
People of our time are so formed for agitation and ostentation that goodness, moderation, equability, constancy, and such quiet and obscure qualities are no longer felt.
Michel de Montaigne
Socrates and then Archesilaus used to make their pupils speak first they spoke afterwards. 'Obest plerumque iss discere volunt authoritas eorum qui docent.' [For those who want to learn, the obstacle can often be the authority of those who teach]
Michel de Montaigne
Poverty of goods is easily cured poverty of soul, impossible.
Michel de Montaigne
We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.
Michel de Montaigne
I find no quality so easy for a man to counterfeit as devotion, though his life and manner are not conformable to it the essence of it is abstruse and occult, but the appearances easy and showy.
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
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
He who lives not to others, lives little to himself.
Michel de Montaigne
