"We every day and every hour say things of another that we might more properly say of ourselves, could we but apply our observations to our own concerns."
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Quote collection
Michel de Montaigne quotes (page 44 of 49)
979 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Every place swarms with commentaries; of authors there is great scarcity."
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"We are born to inquire into truth; it belongs to a greater to possess it"
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"What we are told of the inhabitants of Brazil, that they never die but of old age, is attributed to the tranquility and serenity of their climate; I rather attribute it to the tranquility and serenity of their souls, which are free from all passion, thought, or any absorbing and unpleasant labors. Those people spend their lives in an admirable simplicity and ignorance, without letters, without law, without king, without any manner of religion."
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"We must learn to suffer what we cannot evade; our life, like the harmony of the world, is composed of contrary things, and one part is no less necessary than the other."
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"How many worthy men have we known to survive their own reputation, who have seen and suffered the honor and glory most justly acquired in their youth, extinguished in their own presence?"
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"No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged."
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"Example is a bright looking-glass, universal and for all shapes to look into."
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"One open way of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and draws out discoveries, like wine and love."
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"Nothing else but an insatiate thirst of enjoying a greedily desired object."
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"Some men seem remarkable to the world in whom neither their wives nor their valets saw anything extraordinary. Few men have been admired by their servants."
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"Rash and incessant scolding runs into custom and renders itself despised."
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"Most men are rich in borrowed sufficiency: a man may very well say a good thing, give a good answer, cite a good sentence, without at all seeing the force of either the one or the other."
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"It takes so much to be a king that he exists only as such. That extraneous glare that surrounds him hides him and conceals him from us; our sight breaks and is dissipated by it being filled and arrested by this strong light."
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"Praise is always pleasing, let it come from whom, or upon what account it will."
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"I walk firmer and more secure uphill than down."
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"Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it; reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it."
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"I see several animals that live so entire and perfect a life, some without sight, others without hearing: who knows whether to us also one, two, or three, or many other senses, may not be wanting?"
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"I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray... I am myself the matter of my book."
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"We are nearer neighbors to ourselves than the whiteness of snow or the weight of stones are to us: if man does not know himself, how should he know his functions and powers?"
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