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Tiny Panda Quotes

Quotes by Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was a pivotal French philosopher and writer, renowned as the father of the essay as a literary form. Born into a wealthy family in the region of Aquitaine, Montaigne's early education was unconventional, emphasizing personal experience over rigid learning. His seminal work, "Essais," reflects his introspective nature and explores a wide range of topics, blending personal anecdote with philosophical inquiry. Montaigne's legacy endures, influencing countless thinkers and writers, as he championed skepticism and the importance of self-examination in the quest for knowledge.

27 quotes found

"Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do."

Michel de Montaigne

"Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky."

Michel de Montaigne

"No pleasure has any savor for me without communication."

Michel de Montaigne

"There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to."

Michel de Montaigne

"The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage."

Michel de Montaigne

"Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul."

Michel de Montaigne

"If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it."

Michel de Montaigne

"Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep."

Michel de Montaigne

"There are some defeats more triumphant than victories."

Michel de Montaigne

"How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables."

Michel de Montaigne

"There is no passion so contagious as that of fear."

Michel de Montaigne

"If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love."

Michel de Montaigne

"Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness."

Michel de Montaigne

"It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others."

Michel de Montaigne

"We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom."

Michel de Montaigne

"No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port."

Michel de Montaigne

"My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened."

Michel de Montaigne

"My trade and art is to live."

Michel de Montaigne

"A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband."

Michel de Montaigne

"Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out."

Michel de Montaigne

"I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older."

Michel de Montaigne

"The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness."

Michel de Montaigne

"In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum."

Michel de Montaigne

"I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly."

Michel de Montaigne

"Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages."

Michel de Montaigne

"Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face."

Michel de Montaigne

"It is not death, it is dying that alarms me."

Michel de Montaigne