Famous Quotes by Michel de Montaigne
- These examples, though foreign to us, are not strange, if we consider, as our experience often... More
- The wise man should withdraw his soul within, out of the crowd, and keep it in freedom and power... More
- Our own peculiar human condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh. More
- We judge a horse not only by its pace on a racecourse, but also by its walk, nay, when resting in... More
- Is it reasonable that even the arts should take advantage of and profit by our natural stupidity... More
- The worst condition of humans is when they lose knowledge and control of themselves. More
- Have you known how to take rest? You have done more than he who hath taken empires and cities. More
- I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics. More
- Let [children] be able to do all things, and love to do only the good. More
- The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives. More
- Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves with railing against it. More
- We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment,... More
- Not only does the wind of accidents stir me according to its blowing, but I am also stirred and... More
- Those who make a practice of comparing human actions are never so perplexed as when they try to... More
- He who does not give himself leisure to be thirsty cannot take pleasure in drinking. More
- Truly it is reasonable to make a great distinction between the faults that come from our weakness... More
- I was not long since in a company where I wot not who of my fraternity brought news of a kind of... More
- There were never in the world two opinions alike, any more than two hairs or two grains. Their... More
- Whatever I may be, I want to be elsewhere than on paper. My art and my industry have been... More
- I do not correct my first imaginings by my second—well, yes, perhaps a word or so, but only to... More
- What a wonderful thing it is that drop of seed, from which we are produced, bears in itself the... More
- What fear has once made me will, I am bound still to will when without fear. More
- Fie on the eloquence that leaves us craving itself, not things! More
- I honor most those to whom I show least honor; and where my soul moves with great alacrity, I... More
- I heard a good one at Toulouse of a woman who had passed through the hands of some soldiers:... More
- It is the part of cowardliness, and not of virtue, to seek to squat itself in some hollow lurking... More
- To honor him whom we have made is far from honoring him that hath made us. More
- Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm, and yet will make Gods by dozens. More
- The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbours, causeth a... More
- Seeing that the Senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must... More
- The share we have in the knowledge of truth, such as it is, has not been acquired by our own... More
- When I play with my cat, who knows but that she regards me more as a plaything that I do her? More
- Now there cannot be first principles for men, unless the Divinity has revealed them; all the... More
- Now, since our condition accommodates things to itself, and transforms them according to itself,... More
- What we are told of the inhabitants of Brazil, that they never die but of old age, is attributed... More
- Is it not better to remain in suspense than to entangle yourself in the many errors that the... More
- We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and... More
- This idea is more surely understood by interrogation; WHAT DO I KNOW? which I bear as my motto... More
- And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all... More
- What am I to choose? “Choose what you please, as long as you choose.” There you have a... More
- To judge the appearances we receive of things, we should need a judicatory instrument; to verify... More
- Whoever will imagine a perpetual confession of ignorance, a judgment without leaning or... More
- [One cannot express lack of knowledge in affirmative language.] This idea is more firmly grasped... More
- We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany. More
- In truth, knowledge is a great and very useful quality; those who despise it give evidence enough... More
- Man will rise, if God by exception lends him a hand; he will rise by abandoning and renouncing... More
- Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is... More
- Lay a beam between these two towers of such width as we need to walk on: there is no... More
- What kind of truth can that be that is bounded by these mountains, and that becomes a lie to the... More
- When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me? More
- Even in my own writings I cannot always recover the meaning of my former ideas; I know not what I... More
- Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen. More
- Our speech has its weaknesses and its defects, like all the rest. Most of the occasions for the... More
- I see this evident, that we willingly accord to piety only the services that flatter our passions. More
- In order always to learn something from others (which is the finest school there can be), I... More
- Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant... More
- I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy. More
- When I play with my cat, who knows whether she isn’t amusing herself with me more than I with her. More
- Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition. More
- We cannot do without it, and yet we disgrace and vilify the same. It may be compared to a cage,... More
- I want Death to find me planting my cabbages, neither worrying about it nor the unfinished... More
- Those who have likened our life to a dream were more right, by chance, than they realized. We are... More
- Saying is one thing and doing is another. More
- Few men have been admired of their familiars. More
- The ceaseless labor of your life is to build the house of death. More
- A man should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey. More
- The value of life lies not in the length of days but in the use you make of them; he has lived... More
- If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering:... More
- My art and profession is to live. More
- Vainglory and curiosity are the two scourges of our soul. The latter leads us to thrust our noses... More
- How many things served us but yesterday as articles of faith, which today we deem but fables? More
- I never rebel so much against France as not to regard Paris with a friendly eye; she has had my... More
- How often our involuntary facial motions testify to the thoughts we were keeping secret, and... More
- We call contrary to nature what happens contrary to custom; nothing is anything but according to... More
- While our pulse beats and we feel emotion, let us put off the business. Things will truly seem... More
- I would rather produce my passions than brood over them at my expense; they grow languid when... More
- I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent.... Such as are between... More
- I seek in books only to give myself pleasure by honest amusement; or if I study, I seek only the... More
- Each person calls barbarism whatever is not his or her own practice.... We may call Cannibals... More
- The good, supreme, divine poetry is above the rules and reason. Whoever discerns its beauty with... More
- I am much afraid that we shall have very greatly hastened the decline and ruin of the New World... More
- There are few things on which we can pass a sincere judgement, because there are few things in... More
- Great authors, when they write about causes, adduce not only those they think are true but also... More
- We took advantage of [the Indians’] ignorance and inexperience to incline them the more easily... More
- It has never occurred to me to wish for empire or royalty, nor for the eminence of those high and... More
- Tortures are a dangerous invention, and seem to be a test of endurance rather than of truth. More
- ... whoever believes anything esteems that it is a work of charity to persuade another of it. More
- After all, it is putting a very high price on one’s conjectures to have a man roasted alive... More
- Virtue rejects facility to be her companion.... She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way. More
- I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and reason, as the worst of all the vices. But then I am... More
- It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things... More
- For truly it is to be noted, that children’s plays are not sports, and should be deemed as... More
- The common notions that we find in credit around us and infused into our souls by our fathers’... More
- I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful... More
- If others surpass you in knowledge, in charm, in strength, in fortune, you have other causes to... More
- I hold that it is true that dreams are faithful interpreters of our drives; but there is an art... More
- We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the... More
- How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime! More
- Aesop, that great man, saw his master making water as he walked. “What!” he said, “Must we... More
- Who feareth to suffer suffereth already, because he feareth. More
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