Quotes
Quotes - Montaigne
Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are formed and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing, as bears leisurely lick their cubs into form.
He that I am reading seems always to have the most force.
Apollo said that every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the place where he chanced to be.
How many worthy men have we seen survive their own reputation!
The mariner of old said to Neptune in a great tempest, "O God! thou mayest save me if thou wilt, and if thou wilt thou mayest destroy me; but whether or no, I will steer my rudder true."
One may be humble out of pride.
I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice.
Saying is one thing, doing another.
Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?
Nature forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, not to seem.
There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.
The public weal requires that men should betray and lie and massacre.
Like rowers, who advance backward.
I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more as I grow older.
Few men have been admired by their own domestics.
It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
And to bring in a new word by the head and shoulders, they leave out the old one.
All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
'T is so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so. The strange lustre that surrounds him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there broken and dissipated, being stopped and filled by the prevailing light.
We are born to inquire after truth; it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.
I moreover affirm that our wisdom itself, and wisest consultations, for the most part commit themselves to the conduct of chance.
What if he has borrowed the matter and spoiled the form, as it oft falls out?
The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.
Not because Socrates said so,... I look upon all men as my compatriots.
My appetite comes to me while eating.
