All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
Michel De MontaigneRead
The bitterness of the potion, and the abhorrence of the patient are necessary circumstances to the operation. It must be something to trouble and disturb the stomach that must purge and cure it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Challenges and discomfort can lead to healing and improvement.
This quote by Michel De Montaigne illustrates the idea that difficult experiences and uncomfortable truths are often essential for personal growth and healing. Just as a bitter potion may be unpleasant but necessary for purging illness, so too must we endure challenges that disturb our comfort in order to achieve betterment in our lives.
Themes
HealingGrowthDiscomfortChallengeChange
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about overcoming obstacles, this quote could emphasize the importance of facing difficulties head-on.
More from Michel De Montaigne
All quotes →All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.
Michel De MontaigneRead
Pythagoras used to say that life resembles the Olympic Games: a few people strain their muscles to carry off a prize; others bring trinkets to sell to the crowd for gain; and some there are, and not the worst, who seek no other profit than to look at the show and see how and why everything is done; spectators of the life of other people in order to judge and regulate their own.
Michel De MontaigneRead
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
Michel De MontaigneRead
Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
Michel De MontaigneRead
Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.
Michel De MontaigneRead
Similar quotes
Affirmations are like screaming that you're okay in order to overcome this whisper that you're not. That's a big contrast to actually uncovering the whisper, realizing that it's a passing memory, and moving closer to all those fears and all those edgy feelings that maybe you're not okay. Well, no big deal. None of us is okay and all of us are fine. It's not just one way. We are walking, talking paradoxes.
Pema ChodronRead
Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them; but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.
Jean De La BruyereRead
To know it is not as good as to love it, and to love it is not as good as to take delight in it.
ConfuciusRead
I think judicial temperament is a willingness to step back from your own committed views of the correct jurisprudential approach and evaluate those views in terms of your role as a judge. It's the difference between being a judge and being a law professor.
John RobertsRead
Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
Publius Flavius Vegetius RenatusRead
Scripture is like a lion. Who ever heard of defending a lion? Just turn it loose; it will defend itself.
Charles SpurgeonRead