Michel de Montaigne - Man Quotes

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The plague of man is the opinion of knowledge. That is why ignorance is so recommended by our religion as a quality suitable to belief and obedience.

Michel de Montaigne
Others form man; I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed, whom I should really make very different from whathe is if I had to fashion him over again. But now it is done.

Michel de Montaigne
Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.

Michel de Montaigne
Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen.

Michel de Montaigne
We commend a horse for his strength, and sureness of foot, and not for his rich caparisons; a greyhound for his share of heels, not for his fine collar; a hawk for her wing, not for her jesses and bells. Why, in like manner, do we not value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year, and all these are about him, but not in him.

Michel de Montaigne
As far as fidelity is concerned, there is no animal in the world as treacherous as man.

Michel de Montaigne
There is no man, good as he may be, who, if all his thoughts and actions were submitted to the scrutiny of the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

Michel de Montaigne
A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

Michel de Montaigne
The daughter-in-law of Pythagoras said that a woman who goes to bed with a man ought to lay aside her modesty with her skirt, and put it on again with her petticoat

Michel de Montaigne
Intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not.

Michel de Montaigne
Man will rise, if God by exception lends him a hand; he will rise by abandoning and renouncing his own means, and letting himselfbe raised and uplifted by purely celestial means.

Michel de Montaigne
In my country, when they would say a man has no sense, they say, such an one has no memory; and when I complain of the defect of mine, they do not believe me, and reprove me, as though I accused myself for a fool: not discerning the difference betwixt memory and understanding, which is to make matters still worse for me. But they do me wrong; for experience, rather, daily shows us, on the contrary, that a strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment.

Michel de Montaigne
A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.

Michel de Montaigne
The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little.

Michel de Montaigne
When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; his accusations of himself are always believed; his praises never.

Michel de Montaigne
'As a man who knows how to make his education into a rule of life not a means of showing off; who can control himself and obey his own principles.' The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives.

Michel de Montaigne
There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them.

Michel de Montaigne
To call out for the hand of the enemy is a rather extreme measure, yet a better one, I think, than to remain in continual fever over an accident that has no remedy. But since all the precautions that a man can take are full of uneasiness and uncertainty, it is better to prepare with fine assurance for the worst that can happen, and derive some consolation from the fact that we are not sure that it will happen.

Michel de Montaigne
Since I would rather make of him [the child] an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide [tutor] with a wellmade rather than a well-filled head.

Michel de Montaigne
Aesop, that great man, saw his master making water as he walked. "What!" he said, "Must we void ourselves as we run?" Use our timeas best we may, yet a great part of it will still be idly and ill spent.

Michel de Montaigne
Man is the sole animal whose nudities offend his own companions, and the only one who, in his natural actions, withdraws and hides himself from his own kind.

Michel de Montaigne
A learned man is not learned in all things; but a sufficient man is sufficient throughout, even to ignorance itself.

Michel de Montaigne
God is favorable to those whom he makes to die by degrees; 'tis the only benefit of old age. The last death will be so much the less painful: it will kill but a quarter of a man or but half a one at most.

Michel de Montaigne
And I loathe people who find it harder to put up with a gown askew than with a soul askew and who judge a man by his bow, his bearing and his boots.

Michel de Montaigne
A man of understanding has lost nothing, if he has himself.
In French: L'homme d'entendement n'a rien perdu, s'il a soi-même.

Michel de Montaigne
But the touch or company of any man whatsoever stirreth up their heat, which in their solitude was hushed and quiet, and lay as cinders raked up in ashes.

Michel de Montaigne
The worth and value of a man is in his heart and his will; there lies his real honour. Valour is the strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul.

Michel de Montaigne
A man must be a little mad if he does not want to be even more stupid.

Michel de Montaigne
Every man carries the entire form of the human condition.

Michel de Montaigne
Health is a precious thing, and the only one, in truth, meriting that a man should lay out not only his time, sweat, labor and goods, but also life itself to obtain it.

Michel de Montaigne