Quotessence
Home / Authors / Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsShouldKnowsWorldMindOpinionSoulMayDoePleasureReasonLifeBookGivingVirtueWellsJudgmentLittlesSelf

Famous Michel de Montaigne Quotes

“Custom is a violent and treacherous school mistress. She, by little and lithe, slyly and unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority; but having by this gentle and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we have no more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes.”

LittlesEyeSchoolFeetAuthorityBenefitsHumbleViolentLiftsGentleFixedCustomsSlipsMistressFuriousCountenanceTreacherousHumble Beginnings
Author:Michel de Montaigne
Create image

“We are neither obstinately nor wilfully to oppose evils, nor truckle under them for want of courage, but that we are naturally to give way to them, according to their condition and our own, we ought to grant free passage to diseases; and I find they stay less with me who let them alone. And I have lost those which are reputed the most tenacious and obstinate of their own defervescence, without any help or art, and contrary to their rules. Let us a little permit nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we.”

WayWantGivingLittlesArtHelpingEvilLostConditionsOughtDiseaseAffairContraryGrantsPermitPassagesObstinateTenacious
Book:The Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy
Create image

“To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.”

LittlesBookCharacterOrderWinningBuildingDutyBattleGloriousTranquilityMasterpieceRulingProvincesPropsHoarding
Book:Selections from the essays of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Create image

“Let us a little permit nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we.”

WayLittlesNatureEnvironmentExperienceAffairPermitEcologyMother NatureNature And EnvironmentSave Mother EarthEarth And NatureWorld Environment
Book:Annotated Essays of Michel de Montaigne with English Grammar Exercises: by Michel de Montaigne (Author), Robert Powell (Editor)
Create image

“Their pupils and their little charges are not nourished and fed by what they learn: the learning is passed from hand to hand with only one end in view: to show it off, to put into our accounts to entertain others with it, as though it were merely counters, useful for totting up and producing statements, but having no other use or currency. 'Apud alios loqui didicerunt, non ipsi secum' [They have learned how to talk with others, not with themselves]”

LittlesEndsUseShowsHandsViewsWords Of WisdomAccountsEducationalStatementsFedsCurrencyPupils
Book:The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Create image