“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.”

—  Michel De Montaigne , book Essays

Book II, Ch. 11
Essais (1595), Book II

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Virtue refuses facility for her companion … the easy, gentle, and sloping path that guides the footsteps of a good natu…" by Michel De Montaigne?
Michel De Montaigne photo
Michel De Montaigne 264
(1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, … 1533–1592

Related quotes

Pelagius photo

“We can never enter upon the path to virtue unless we have hope as our guide and companion.”

Pelagius (360–420) British monk

Letter to Demetrias

Steven Erikson photo

“But now Apsalar was trying to tell him that competence was not justification. That necessity demanded its own path and there was no virtue to be found at its heart.”

Steven Erikson book House of Chains

House of Chains (2002)

Margaret Weis photo

“His love for her was a gift he gave her daily, expecting nothing in return. He walked at her side, his love for her a torch to guide her footsteps along the dark path she walked.”

Margaret Weis book Dragons of a Fallen Sun

Source: Dragons of a Fallen Sun

Parmenides photo

“The only roads of enquiry there are to think of: one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be, this is the path of persuasion (for truth is its companion); the other, that it is not and that it must not be — this I say to you is a path wholly unknowable.”

Parmenides (-501–-470 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

Frag. B 2.2-6, quoted by Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus I, 345

Gregory of Nyssa photo

“Virtue is achieved by its seekers not without a struggle; nor is abstinence from the paths of pleasure a painless process to human nature.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

On Infants' Early Deaths

Bayard Taylor photo

“Knowledge alone is the being of Nature,
Giving a soul to her manifold features,
Lighting through paths of the primitive darkness,
The footsteps of Truth and the vision of Song.”

Bayard Taylor (1825–1878) United States poet, novelist and travel writer

Kilimandjaro (1852), Stanza 2; later published in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 73.

Wilhelm Von Humboldt photo

“It is only through extremes that men can arrive at the middle path of wisdom and virtue.”

Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin

Source: The Limits of State Action (1792), Ch. 8
Context: Setting aside the fact that coercion and guidance can never succeed in producing virtue, they manifestly tend to weaken power; and what are tranquil order and outward morality without true moral strength and virtue? Moreover, however great an evil immorality may be, we must not forget that it is not without its beneficial consequences. It is only through extremes that men can arrive at the middle path of wisdom and virtue.

Marcelo H. del Pilar photo

“The education of the women stimulates and elevates that of the men.. because of their influence in the family as daughter, sister, wife or mother…They are not only a balm to the hardships of life but also an element that influences and guides men along the path of virtue, perversity or cowardice.”

Marcelo H. del Pilar (1850–1896) Filipino writer, lawyer, and journalist (1850-1896)

Marcelo H. del Pilar to the women of Bulacan (1889)

Albert Barnes photo

“One of the best maxims in determining our course in life is, to select, at the outset, that in which virtue and principle will be least likely to be put to a test, and in which, from the nature of the calling, a man may bring around him such associations and influences as will be an auxiliary in keeping him in the path of virtue.”

Albert Barnes (1798–1870) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 437.

Related topics