A Quote by Michel de Montaigne
Obstinacy and contention are common qualities, most appearing in, and best becoming, a mean and illiterate soul.
Related Quotes
The most potent and acceptable prayer is the prayer that leaves the best effects. I don't mean it must immediately fill the soul with desire . . . The best effects are those that are followed up by actions-when the soul not only desires the honor of God, but really strives for it.
Contention is inseparable from creating knowledge. It is not contention we should try to avoid, but discourses that attempt to suppress contention.
The obstinacy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinacy of folly and inanity.
The man, most man,
Works best for men, and, if most men indeed,
He gets his manhood plainest from his soul:
While, obviously, this stringent soul itself
Obeys our old rules of development;
The Spirit ever witnessing in ours,
And Love, the soul of soul, within the soul,
Evolving it sublimely.
The good qualities in our soul are most successfully and forcefully awakened by the power of art. Just as science is the intellect of the world, art is its soul.
My concern is that contention is becoming accepted as a way of life.
Obstinacy is the strength of the weak. Firmness founded upon principle, upon the truth and right, order and law, duty and generosity, is the obstinacy of sages.
To be concerned with the issue; soul versus non-soul, is to be in bondage to craving for becoming and non-becoming.
There is something in obstinacy which differs from every other passion. Whenever it fails, it never recovers, but either breaks like iron, or crumbles sulkily away, like a fractured arch. Most other passions have their periods of fatigue and rest, their sufferings and their cure; but obstinacy has no resource, and the first wound is mortal.
I should say tact was worth much more than wealth as a road to leadership.... I mean that subtle apprehension which teaches a person how to do and say the right thing at the right time. It coexists with very ordinary qualities, and yet many great geniuses are without it. Of all human qualities I consider it the most convenient--not always the highest; yet I would rather have it than many more shining qualities.
Think both big and small. Loving to bake doesn't only mean becoming a baker. It could mean starting a blog, becoming a food photographer, or going into organic chemistry.
To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish.
Men insist that they don't mind women succeeding so long as they retain their "femininity". Yet the qualities that men consider "feminine" - timidity, submissiveness, obedience, silliness, and self-debasement - are the very qualities best guaranteed to assure the defeat of even the most gifted aspirant.
Contention in our families drives the Spirit of the Lord away. It also drives many of our family members away. Contention ranges from a hostile spoken word to worldwide conflicts. The scriptures tell us that "Only by pride cometh contention".
Education perverts the mind since we are directly opposing the natural development of our mind by obtaining ideas first and observations last. This is why so few men of learning have such sound common sense as is quite common among the illiterate.
The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so.
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