Michel de Montaigne
From Wikiquote (Redirected from Montaigne) Jump to: navigation, search I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old. I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592) was an influential French Renaissance writer, generally considered to be the inventor of the personal essay.
Essais">Essais
- Written between 1571 and 1592, these were published in various editions between 1580 and 1595
- Que sais-je?
- Translation: "What know I?" or "What do I know?"
- The notion of skepticism is most clearly understood by asking this question.
- Book II, ch. 12
- Je veux qu'on me voit en ma façon simple, naturelle, et ordinaire, sans étude et artifice; car c'est moi que je peins...Je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre.
- Translation: 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.
- Book I (1580), To the Reader
- Certes, c'est un subject merveilleusement vain, divers, et ondoyant, que l'homme. Il est malaisé d'y fonder jugement constant et uniforme.
- Translation: Truly man is a marvellously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgement on him.
- Book I, ch. 1
- As for extraordinary things, all the provision in the world would not suffice.
- Book I, ch. 14
- In my opinion, every rich man is a miser.
- Book I, ch. 14
- Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so.
- Book I, ch. 14
- C'est de quoi j'ai le plus de peur que la peur.
- Translation: The thing I fear most is fear.
- Book I, ch, 18
- Je veux que la mort me trouve plantant mes choux.
- Translation: I want death to find me planting my cabbages.
- Book I, ch. 20
- All the opinions in the world point out that pleasure is our aim.
- Book I, ch. 20
- He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.
- Book I, ch. 20
- The day of your birth leads you to death as well as to life.
- Book I, ch. 20
- Live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead.
- Book I, ch. 20
- Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough.
- Book I, ch. 20
- All of the days go toward death and the last one arrives there.
- Book I, ch. 20
- We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there.
- Book I, ch. 25
- Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.
- Book I, ch. 25
- Un peu de chaque chose, et rien du tout, a la française.
- Translation: A little of all things, but nothing of everything, after the French manner.
- On the education of children; Book I, Chapter 26
- I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.
- Variant: I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
- Book I, ch. 26
- Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head.
- Book I, ch. 26
- Combien de choses nous servoyent hier d’articles de foy, qui nous sont fables aujourd’huy?
- Translation: How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which today are fables for us?
- Book I, ch. 27
- Parce que c'était lui; parce que c'était moi.
- Translation: If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was I.
- Variants: If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself. If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.
- Book I, ch. 28
- Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.
- Variant: Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
- Book I, ch. 32
- L'homme d'entendement n'a rien perdu, s'il a soimême.
- Translation: A man of understanding has lost nothing, if he has himself.
- Book I, ch. 39
- La plus grande chose du monde, c'est de savoir être à soi.
- Translation: The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
- Book I, ch. 39
- There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.
- Book II (1580), ch. 1
- C'est une épineuse entreprise, et plus qu'il ne semble, de suivre une allure si vagabonde que celle de nôtre esprit; de pénétrer les profondeurs opaques de ses replis internes; de choisir et arrêter tant de menus de ses agitations.
- Translation: It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it.
- Book II, ch. 6
- Mon métier et mon art, c'est vivre.
- Translation: My trade and my art is living.
- Book II, ch. 6
- Virtue refuses facility for her companion ... the easy, gentle, and sloping path that guides the footsteps of a good natural disposition is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.
- Book II, ch. 11
- Quand je me joue à ma chatte, qui sçait si elle passe son temps de moy plus que je ne fay d'elle?
- Translation: When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?
- Book II, ch. 12
- The sage says that all that is under heaven incurs the same law and the same fate.
- Book II, ch. 12
- As far as fidelity is concerned, there is no animal in the world as treacherous as man.
- Book II, ch. 12
- The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.
- Book II, ch. 12
- The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.
- Book II, ch. 12
- Man is forming thousands of ridiculous relations between himself and God.
- Book II, ch. 12
- L'homme est bien insensé. Il ne saurait forger un ciron, et forge des Dieux à douzaines.
- Translation: Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen.
- Book II, ch. 12
- Quelle vérité que ces montagnes bornent, qui est mensonge qui se tient au delà?
- Translation: What of a truth that is bounded by these mountains and is falsehood to the world that lives beyond?
- Book II, ch. 12
- Ceux qui ont apparié notre vie à un songe ont eu de la raison...Nous veillons dormants et veillants dormons.
- Translation: Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... We are sleeping awake, and waking asleep.
- Book II, ch. 12
- How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!
- Book II, ch. 16
- A man may be humble through vainglory.
- Book II, ch. 17
- I find that the best goodness I have has some tincture of vice.
- Book II, ch. 20
- Saying is one thing and doing is another.
- Book II, ch. 31
- There were never in the world two opinions alike, any more than two hairs or two grains. Their most universal quality is diversity.
- Book II, ch. 37
- I will follow the good side right to the fire, but not into it if I can help it.
- Book III (1595), ch. 1
- I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.
- Book III, ch. 2
- Few men have been admired by their own households.
- Book III, ch. 2
- Chaque homme porte la forme, entière de l'humaîne condition.
- Translation: Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.
- Book III, ch. 2
- It (marriage) happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
- Book III, ch. 5
- Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.
- Book III, ch. 9
- There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
- Book III, ch. 9
- A man must be a little mad if he does not want to be even more stupid.
- Book III, ch. 9
- I have seen no more evident monstrosity and miracle in the world than myself.
- Book III, ch. 11
- It is more of a job to interpret the interpretations than to interpret the things, and there are more books about books than about any other subject: we do nothing but write glosses about each other.
- Book III, ch. 13
- For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits.
- Book III, ch. 13
- Si, avons nous beau monter sur des échasses, car sur des échasses encore faut-il marcher de nos jambes. Et au plus élevé trône du monde, si ne sommes assis que sur notre cul.
- Translation: No matter that we may mount on stilts, we still must walk on our own legs. And on the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.
- Book III, ch. 13
- Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do.
- Book III, ch. 13
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