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We may so seize on virtue, that if we embrace it with an overgreedy and violent desire, it may become vicious.
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
Become
May
Seize
Vicious
Violent
Embrace
Virtue
Desire
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
A man has need of tough ears to hear himself fairly judged.
Michel de Montaigne
The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.
Michel de Montaigne
I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and reason, as the worst of all the vices. But then I am so soft in this that I cannot seea chicken's neck wrung without distress, and cannot bear to hear the squealing of a hare between the teeth of my hounds.
Michel de Montaigne
Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are found and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing.
Michel de Montaigne
The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.
Michel de Montaigne
When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
Michel de Montaigne
One may be humble out of pride.
Michel de Montaigne
For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.
Michel de Montaigne
There is a certain amount of purpose, acquiescence, and satisfaction in nursing one's melancholy.
Michel de Montaigne
The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use some men have lived long, and lived little attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough.
Michel de Montaigne
He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying.
Michel de Montaigne
Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.
Michel de Montaigne
The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.
Michel de Montaigne
Behold the hands, how they promise, conjure, appeal, menace, pray, supplicate, refuse, beckon, interrogate, admire, confess, cringe, instruct, command, mock and what not besides, with a variation and multiplication of variation which makes the tongue envious.
Michel de Montaigne
Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures.
Michel de Montaigne
Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.
Michel de Montaigne
There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.
Michel de Montaigne
Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the extremest of all vices.
Michel de Montaigne
Off I go, rummaging about in books for sayings which please me.
Michel de Montaigne
In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word.
Michel de Montaigne