montaigne

%
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Ambition is not a vice of little people.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
One may be humble out of pride.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.
~ Michele 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.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
My trade and art is to live.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
The thing I fear most is fear.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
~ Michele 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.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.
~ Michele 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.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
The world is but a perpetual see-saw.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. A spirited mind never stops within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my reason.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet - the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man's estate.
~ Michele 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.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
It is an absolute and virtually divine perfection to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Few men have been admired of their familiars.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.
~ Michele 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.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world; yet all this is but One.
~ Michele 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.
~ Michele 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.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
~ Michele 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.
~ Michele 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.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%
Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.
~ Michele de Montaigne
%