Michel de Montaigne Quotes on Politics
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 politics, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.”
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. -
“'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 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 -
“It would be better to have no laws at all than to have them in such profusion as we do.”
Book III | Ch. 13