"There are as many and innumerable degrees of wit, as there are cubits between this and heaven."
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Quote collection
Michel de Montaigne quotes (page 41 of 49)
979 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world; yet all this is but One."
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"Que sçais-je?" (What do I know?)"
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"There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)"
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"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."
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"Can anything be imagined so ridiculous that this miserable and wretched creature, who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole?"
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"Natural inclinations are assisted and reinforced by education, but they are hardly ever altered or overcome."
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"It is putting a very high price on one's conjectures to have someone roasted alive on their account."
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"Not because Socrates said so,... I look upon all men as my compatriots."
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"The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write."
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"A tutor should not be continually thundering instruction into the ears of his pupil, as if he were pouring it through a funnel, but, after having put the lad, like a young horse, on a trot, before him, to observe his paces, and see what he is able to perform, should, according to the extent of his capacity, induce him to taste, to distinguish, and to find out things for himself; sometimes opening the way, at other times leaving it for him to open; and by abating or increasing his own pace, accommodate his precepts to the capacity of his pupil."
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"We cannot fail in following nature."
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"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"
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"As by some might be saide of me: that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange floures, and have put nothing of mine unto it, but the thred to binde them. Certes, I have given unto publike opinion, that these borrowed ornaments accompany me; but I meane not they should cover or hide me."
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"Nature has with a Motherly Tenderness observed this, that the Action she has enjoyned us for our Necessity should be also pleasant to us, and invites us to them, not only by Reason, but also by Appetite: and tis Injustice to infringe her Laws."
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"Perhaps it is not without reason that we attribute facility in belief and conviction to simplicity and ignorance; for it seems to me I once learned that belief was sort of an impression made on our mind, and that the softer it is the less resistant t."
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"Like the watermen who advance forward while they look backward."
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"There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them."
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"Peoples nurtured on freedom and self-government judge any other form of polity to be deformed and unnatural. Those who are used to monarchy do the same ."
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"The clatter of arms drowns out the voice of law."
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