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Quotes by Michel de Montaigne

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.
– Michel de Montaigne
A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.
– Michel de Montaigne
Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.
– Michel de Montaigne
Ambition is not a vice of little people.
– Michel de Montaigne
An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.
– Michel de Montaigne
Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.
– Michel 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.
– Michel de Montaigne
Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.
– Michel 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 de Montaigne
Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.
– Michel de Montaigne
Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.
– Michel de Montaigne
Hath God obliged himself not to exceed the bounds of our knowledge?
– Michel de Montaigne
He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.
– Michel de Montaigne
How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.
– Michel 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.
– Michel de Montaigne
I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.
– Michel de Montaigne
I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.
– Michel de Montaigne
I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
– Michel de Montaigne
I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
– Michel 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.
– Michel 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 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 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.
– Michel 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 de Montaigne
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
– Michel de Montaigne
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
– Michel de Montaigne
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
– Michel 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.
– Michel de Montaigne
Labour not after riches first, and think thou afterwards wilt enjoy them. He who neglecteth the present moment, throweth away all that he hath. As the arrow passeth through the heart, while the warrior knew not that it was coming; so shall his life be taken away before he knoweth that he hath it.
– Michel de Montaigne
Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
– Michel de Montaigne
Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.
– Michel de Montaigne
Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.
– Michel 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.
– Michel 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 de Montaigne
Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
– Michel de Montaigne
Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.
– Michel de Montaigne
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
– Michel de Montaigne
My trade and art is to live.
– Michel de Montaigne
No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
– Michel de Montaigne
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.
– Michel de Montaigne
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
– Michel de Montaigne
Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.
– Michel 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.
– Michel de Montaigne
One may be humble out of pride.
– Michel de Montaigne
Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.
– Michel de Montaigne
Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves with railing against it.
– Michel de Montaigne
The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.
– Michel 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 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.
– Michel de Montaigne
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
– Michel de Montaigne
The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.
– Michel de Montaigne
The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
– Michel de Montaigne
The thing I fear most is fear.
– Michel 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.
– Michel de Montaigne
The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.
– Michel de Montaigne
The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.
– Michel de Montaigne
The world is but a perpetual see-saw.
– Michel 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 de Montaigne
There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.
– Michel de Montaigne
There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.
– Michel de Montaigne
There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
– Michel de Montaigne
There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.
– Michel 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 de Montaigne
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
– Michel de Montaigne
Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
– Michel de Montaigne
'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
– Michel de Montaigne
Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.
– Michel de Montaigne
We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
– Michel de Montaigne
We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.
– Michel de Montaigne
When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
– Michel de Montaigne
What do I know?
– Michel de Montaigne
A man of understanding has lost nothing, if he has himself.
– Michel de Montaigne
Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.
– Michel de Montaigne
Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.
– Michel de Montaigne
He who is not very strong in memory should not meddle with lying.
– Michel de Montaigne
No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.
– Michel de Montaigne
So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination. ..And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do no bring forth in the agitation.
– Michel de Montaigne
The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure.
– Michel de Montaigne
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
– Michel de Montaigne
The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.
– Michel de Montaigne
When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.
– Michel de Montaigne
Even on the highest throne in the world, we are still sitting on our ass.
– Michel de Montaigne
I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can.
– Michel de Montaigne
There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge.
– Michel de Montaigne
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
– Michel de Montaigne
Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.
– Michel de Montaigne
No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.
– Michel 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.
– Michel de Montaigne
If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.
– Michel 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.
– Michel 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.
– Michel 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.
– Michel de Montaigne
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
– Michel de Montaigne
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
– Michel de Montaigne