“Those who have compared our life to a dream were right…”

—  Michel De Montaigne , book Essays

Book II, Ch. 12
Variant translation: They who have compared our lives to a dream were, perhaps, more in the right than they were aware of. When we dream, the soul lives, works, and exercises all its faculties, neither more nor less than when awake; but more largely and obscurely, yet not so much, neither, that the difference should be as great as betwixt night and the meridian brightness of the sun, but as betwixt night and shade; there she sleeps, here she slumbers; but, whether more or less, ‘tis still dark, and Cimmerian darkness. We wake sleeping, and sleep waking.
Essais (1595), Book II
Context: Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... We are sleeping awake, and waking asleep.

Original

Ceux qui ont apparié notre vie à un songe ont eu de la raison… Nous veillons dormants et veillants dormons.

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 "Those who have compared our life to a dream were right…" by Michel De Montaigne?
Michel De Montaigne photo
Michel De Montaigne 264
(1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, … 1533–1592

Related quotes

Lysander Spooner photo

“If our fathers, in 1776, had acknowledged the principle that a majority had the right to rule the minority, we should never have become a nation; for they were in a small minority, as compared with those who claimed the right to rule over them.”

Lysander Spooner book No Treason

No Treason (1867–1870), No. I

Francis Escudero photo

“And yet, I refuse to agree with those who say I have no right to have dreams or ambitions, especially if those dreams or ambitions are not for myself, but for our country and my fellow countrymen.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2015, Speech: Declaration as Vice Presidential Candidate

Graham Greene photo

“Simplicity belonged by right to those who were native-born, those who could take the conditions of life, however bizarre, for granted.”

Graham Greene book The Honorary Consul

The Honorary Consul (1973)

Fernando Pessoa photo

“This world is for those who are born to conquer it, Not for those who dream that are able to conquer it, even if they're right.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Source: Poems of Fernando Pessoa

Ronald Reagan photo

“We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

The third and fourth sentences are a paraphrase of a sentence by G. K. Chesterton: "I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act." Generally Speaking, "On Holland' (1928).
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), First Inaugural address (1981)
Context: It is time for us to realize that we're too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We're not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope. We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look.

Edwin Markham photo

“If this is a dream, then perhaps our dreaming
Can touch life's height to a finer fire:
Who knows but the heavens and all their seeming
Were made by the heart's desire?”

Edwin Markham (1852–1940) American poet

Source: The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems (1913), The Crowning Hour, II
Context: p>If this is a dream, then perhaps our dreaming
Can touch life's height to a finer fire:
Who knows but the heavens and all their seeming
Were made by the heart's desire?One thing shines clear in the heart's sweet reason,
One lightning over the chasm runs —
That to turn from love is the world's one treason
That darkens all the suns.</p

Barack Obama photo

“The point is, is that the aim of our work must be not to just have a few do well, but to have everybody have a chance, everybody who is willing to work for it have the ability to dream big and then reach those dreams.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Address to the People of India (January 2015)

Eric Holder photo

“When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African Americans, and to compare what people were subjected to there to what happened in Philadelphia—which was inappropriate, certainly that…to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

March 1, 2011.
Remarks at House Appropriations subcommittee to Rep. John Culberson, who was questioning him about voter intimidation by the Black Panthers. http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0311/Eric_Holder_Black_Panther_case_focus_demeans_my_people.html
2010s

Virginia Woolf photo

“By the truth we are undone. Life is a dream. 'Tis the waking that kills us. He who robs us of our dreams robs us of our life.”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando

Related topics