All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
Michel De MontaigneRead
It is not reasonable that art should win the place of honor over our great and powerful mother Nature. We have so overloaded the beauty and richness of her works by our inventions that we have quite smothered her.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the superiority of nature over man's artistic creations.
Montaigne argues that while human art is valuable, it should not overshadow the grandeur and beauty of nature. He suggests that our inventions and creations have, in fact, diminished the appreciation of the natural world, which is often more magnificent than our own artistic endeavors.
Themes
NatureArtBeautyCreativityInvention
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of environmental conservation.
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
Poets are excellent students of blizzards and salt and broken statuary, but they are always elsewhere for the test. Any intention in the writing of poetry besides the aim to make a poem, of engaging the materials, SHOULD be disappointed. If the poet does not have the chutzpah to jeopardize habituated assumptions and practices, what will be produced will be sleep without dream, a copy of a copy of a copy.
Dean YoungRead
I never go outside unless I look like Joan Crawford the movie star. If you want to see the girl next door, go next door.
Joan CrawfordRead
I think that literature is something that embraces a much larger experience than politics. It's an expression of what is life, of what are all the dimensions of life. But politics is one among others.
Mario Vargas LlosaRead
Simple ingredients, treated with respect... put them together and you will always have a great dish.
Jose AndresRead
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.
Allen GinsbergRead
Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience.
Harry BelafonteRead