Michel de Montaigne Quotes

Of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful.

We see the moon, don't we? So it's our eye. Animals see us, don't they? So we're their animals.

The eye is the most refined of our senses, the one which communicates most directly with our mind, our consciousness.

The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.

Light comes to us by the sensibility. Without visual sensibility there is no light, no movement.

The spirit's foe in man has not been simplicity, but sophistication.

There may be one fault in a man that conceals a thousand qualities, or one excellence that conceals a thousand faults. The little indicates much.

We must look a long time before we can see.

Art is the microscope of the mind, which sharpens the wit as the other does the sight; and converts every object into a little universe in itself. Art may be said to draw aside the veil from nature. To those who are perfectly unskilled in the practice, unimbued with the principles of art, most objects present only a confused mass.

One of the greatest enemies to vision is sight!

I feel like whole idea with makeup is that I don't want anyone to think, 'Oh she's wearing makeup.' I just want them to think, 'Oh she looks good!'

It is harder to see than it is to express. The whole value of art rests in the artist's ability to see well into what is before him. ... The model will serve equally for a Rembrandt drawing or for anybody's magazine cover. A genius is one who can see. The others can often 'draw' remarkably well. ... Those who get their technique first, expecting sight to come to them later, get a technique of a very ready-made order.

All men naturally desire knowledge. An indication of this is our esteem for the senses; for apart from their use we esteem them for their own sake, and most of all the sense of sight. Not only with a view to action, but even when no action is contemplated, we prefer sight, generally speaking, to all the other senses. The reason of this is that of all the senses sight best helps us to know things, and reveals many distinctions.

Sight is the noblest sense of man.

Where the good begins.- Where the poor power of the eye can no longer see the evil impulse as such because it has become too subtle, man posits the realm of goodness; and the feeling that we have now entered the realm of goodness excites all those impulses which had been threatened and limited by the evil impulses, like the feeling of security, of comfort, of benevolence. Hence, the duller the eye, the more extensive the good. Hence the eternal cheerfulness of the common people and of children. Hence the gloominess and grief - akin to a bad conscience - of the great thinkers.

The Kiowas reckoned their stature by the distance they could see.

Look for the stars, you'll say that there are none; / Look up a second time, and, one by one, / You mark them twinkling out with silvery light, / And wonder how they could elude the sight!

Charm is the enchanted dart, light and subtle as a hummingbird. But it is deceptive in one thing: like a sense of humor, if you think you've got it, you probably haven't.

Do not underestimate the human being, who sometimes appears so simple. Even with sight as sharp as an eagle, a mind as sharp as a razor, senses more powerful than gods, hearing that can catch the music and the lamentations of life, your knowledge of humanity will never be total.

The ever-present phenomenon ceases to exist for our senses. It was a city dweller, or a prisoner, or a blind man suddenly given his sight, who first noted natural beauty.

Don't be led away by those howls about realism. Remember-pine woods are just as real as pigsties and a darn sight pleasanter to be in.

Sight is a faculty; seeing is an art.

Become enraptured by the sights and sounds in intrigue of nature and beauty, come along with me and take it all in. Come here my love.