Michel de Montaigne Quotes on Nature
Michel de Montaigne was a French Renaissance philosopher and the inventor of the modern essay. This page collects quotes attributed to Michel de Montaigne on the topic of nature, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“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.”
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. -
“'T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things might certainly conclude as to both the future and the past.”
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) | Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond -
“The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.”
Book I | Ch. 22. Of Custom (tr. Cotton, rev. W. Hazlitt, 1842) -
“There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.”
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) | Book II, Ch. 11. Of Cruelty -
“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. Of Cruelty (tr. Donald M. Frame) -
“As to fidelity, there is no animal in the world so treacherous as man. Our histories have recorded the violent pursuits that dogs have made after the murderers of their masters.”
Book II | Ch. 12 (tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877) -
“We are no nearer heaven on the top of Mount Cenis than at the bottom of the sea; take the distance with your astrolabe. They debase God even to the carnal knowledge of women, to so many times, and so many generations.”
Book II | Ch. 12 -
“Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.”
Book II | Ch. 37