Quotessence
Home / Authors / Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsShouldKnowsWorldMindOpinionSoulMayDoePleasureReasonLifeBookGivingVirtueWellsJudgmentLittlesSelf

Famous Michel de Montaigne Quotes

“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?”

KnowsMayTwoThreePerfectAnimalSightHearingSenses
Book:The Complete Works of Michael de Montaigne; Comprising; the Essays, Translated by Cotton; the Letters; the Journey Into Germany and Italy, Now First Translated; a Life by the Editor; Notes: ... Critical Opinions; ... the Éloges of MM. Jay and Villemain; a
Create image

“Men do not know the natural infirmity of their mind: it does nothing but ferret and quest, and keeps incessantly whirling around, building up and becoming entangled in its own work, like silkworms, and is suffocated in it. A mouse in a pitch barrel...thinks it notices from a distance some sort of glimmer of imaginary light and truth; but while running toward it, it is crossed by so many difficulties and obstacles, and diverted by so many new quests, that it strays from the road, bewildered.”

ThinkingKnowsMenMindDoeLightRunningNaturalBuildingBecomingDifficultyDistanceObstaclesImaginaryQuestsMiceBarrelsInfirmityIncessantlyBewilderedBuilding UpFerrets
Author:Michel de Montaigne
Create image

“Now, since our condition accommodates things to itself, and transforms them according to itself, we no longer know things in their reality; for nothing comes to us that is not altered and falsified by our Senses. When the compass, the square, and the rule are untrue, all the calculations drawn from them, all the buildings erected by their measure, are of necessity also defective and out of plumb. The uncertainty of our senses renders uncertain everything that they produce.”

KnowsMindPhilosophyBodyRealityPsychologyConditionsProduceBuildingMedicineSensesUncertaintySquaresUncertainCompassCalculationsAlteredAccommodateUntrueDefectiveSoma
Author:Michel de Montaigne
Create image