Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Nature should have been pleased to have made this age miserable, without making it also ridiculous.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Ambition is not a vice of little people.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

No profession or occupation is more pleasing than the military; a profession or exercise both noble in execution (for the strongest, most generous and proudest of all virtues is true valor) and noble in its cause. No utility either more just or universal than the protection of the repose or defense of the greatness of one's country. The company and daily conversation of so many noble, young and active men cannot but be well-pleasing to you.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

I consider myself an average man, except in the fact that I consider myself an average man.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The beauty of stature is the only beauty of men.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

How many things served us but yesterday as articles of faith, which today we deem but fables?

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Every abridgement of a good book is a fool abridged.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

An unattempted lady could not vaunt of her chastity.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Confidence in another person's virtue is no light evidence of your own.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is in conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life; and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves with railing against it.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

I want death to find me planting my cabbage

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. My advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

It is not death that alarms me, but dying.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

But sure there is need of other remedies than dreaming, a weak contention of art against nature.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk -- they are all part of the curriculum.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Example is a bright looking-glass, universal and for all shapes to look into.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

All the fame you should look for in life is to have lived it quietly.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The thing I fear most is fear.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

I know what I am fleeing from, but not what I am in search of.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

No wind favors him who has no destined port.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

To honor him whom we have made is far from honoring him that hath made us..

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

It is very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of it.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

It is not the want, but rather abundance that creates avarice.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Habit is second nature.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The smallest annoyances, disturb us the most.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent. Such as are between both (which is the most common fashion), it is they that spoil all; they will needs chew our meat for us and take upon them a law to judge, and by consequence to square and incline the story according to their fantasy.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

My home...It is my retreat and resting place from wars, I try to keep this corner as a haven against the tempest outside, as I do another corner in my soul.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Man is stark mad; he cannot make a flea, and yet he will be making gods by the dozens.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The weeping of an heir is laughter in disguise.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

It is a common seen by experience that excellent memories do often accompany weak judgments.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

It should be noted that children's games are not merely games. One should regard them as their most serious activities.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

He who is not very strong in memory should not meddle with lying.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

My art and profession is to live.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The finest lives in my opinion are the common model, without miracle and without extravagance.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The word is half his that speaks, and half his that hears it.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

We cannot do without it, and yet we disgrace and vilify the same. It may be compared to a cage, the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair to get out.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside desperate to get out.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

I was not long since in a company where I was not who of my fraternity brought news of a kind of pills, by true account, composed of a hundred and odd several ingredients; whereat we laughed very heartily, and made ourselves good sport; for what rock so hard were able to resist the shock or withstand the force of so thick and numerous a battery?

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The memory represents to us not what we choose but what it pleases.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

He who has not a good memory should never take upon himself the trade of lying.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

It is much more easy to accuse the one sex than to excuse the other.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The most unhappy and frail creatures are men and yet they are the proudest.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Taking it all in all, I find it is more trouble to watch after money than to get it.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Let Nature have her way; she understands her business better than we do.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains. The most universal quality is diversity.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

I care not so much what I am in the opinion of others, as what I am in my own; I would be rich of myself and not by borrowing.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

It happens as one sees in cages: the birds who are outside despair of ever getting in, and those within are equally desirous of getting out

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

There is no course of life so weak and Scottish as that which is ordered by orders, method, and discipline.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Philosophy is doubt.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and the one nearest at hand.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided if greater pains be the consequence, and pains to be coveted that will terminate in greater pleasures.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Once you have decided to keep a certain pile, it is no longer yours; for you can't spend it.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

There are few men who dare to publish to the world the prayers they make to Almighty God.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The worthiest man to be known, and for a pattern to be presented to the world, he is the man of whom we have most certain knowledge. He hath been declared and enlightened by the most clear-seeing men that ever were; the testimonies we have of him are in faithfulness and sufficiency most admirable.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

We endeavor more that men should speak of us, than how and what they speak, and it sufficeth us that our name run in men's mouths, in what manner soever. It stemma that to be known is in some sort to have life and continuance in other men's keeping.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne