Michel de Montaigne Quotes

We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there.

On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.

Meditation is a powerful and full study as can effectually taste and employ themselves.

...were these Essays of mine considerable enough to deserve a critical judgment, it might then, I th...

If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.

The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived l...

Difficulty is a coin which the learned conjure with so as not to reveal the vanity of their studies ...

Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.

I have heard Silvius, an excellent physician of Paris, say that lest the digestive faculties of the ...

It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dis...

The thing I fear most is fear.

Je hay entre autres vices, cruellement la cruauté, et par nature et par jugement, comme l'extreme de...

J'accuse toute violence en l'education d'une ame tendre, qu'on dresse pour l'honneur, et la liberté.

Il n'est si homme de bien, qu'il mette à l'examen des loix toutes ses actions et pensées, qui ne soi...

L'honneste est stable et permanent.

D'autant que nous avons cher, estre, et estre consiste en mouvement et action.

Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.

Heureuse la mort qui oste le loisir aux apprests de tel equipage.

L'utilité du vivre n'est pas en l'espace: elle est en l'usage.

The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar.

I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or ...

Antigonus, having taken one of his soldiers into a great degree of favor and esteem for his valor, g...

I find I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardor of dispute, I ...

This emperor was arbiter of the whole world at nineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty befor...

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.

Plato forbids children wine till eighteen years of age, and to get drunk till forty; but, after fort...

Certainly, if he still has himself, a man of understanding has lost nothing.

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

Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition.

I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than underst...

[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of g...

I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

Why do people respect the package rather than the man?

What a prodigious conscience must that be that can be at quiet within itself whilst it harbors under...

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

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

Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human ...

Between ourselves, there are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: superc...

Il n'est rien qui tente mes larmes que les larmes.

All is a-swarm with commentaries: of authors there is a dearth.

We are all lumps, and of so various and inform a contexture, that every piece plays, every moment, i...

Is it that we pretend to a reformation? Truly, no: but it may be we are more addicted to Venus than ...

Les naturels sanguinaires à l'endroit des bestes, tesmoignent une propension naturelle à la cruauté.

The natural heat, say the good-fellows,first seats itself in the feet: that concerns infancy; thence...

Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.

To an atheist all writings tend to atheism: he corrupts the most innocent matter with his own venom.

Nature a, (ce crains-je) elle mesme attaché à l'homme quelque instinct à l'inhumanité

Demetrius the grammarian finding in the temple of Delphos a knot of philosophers set chatting togeth...

Had I been placed among those nations which are said to live still in the sweet freedom of nature's ...

Atheism being a proposition as unnatural as monstrous, difficult also and hard to establish in the h...

Excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgments.

The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.

Pride and curiosity are the two scourges of our souls. The latter prompts us to poke our noses into ...

We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.

All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own.

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.

Can anything be imagined so ridiculous, that this miserable and wretched creature [man], who is not ...

It is not reasonable that art should win the place of honor over our great and powerful mother Natur...

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrec...

Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our ...

When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly...

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.

A man with nothing to lend should refrain from borrowing.

From books all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honourable pastime: or if I do study, I seek ...

We should tend our freedom wisely.

Tis no wonder, says one of the ancients, that chance has so great a dominion over us, since it is by...

Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.

Diogenes was asked what wine he liked best and he answered "Somebody else's."

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

There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened.

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.

Philosophy is doubt.

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

I...think it much more supportable to be always alone, than never to be so.

If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and ad...

Writing does not cause misery, it is born of misery.

Obstinacy and heat in sticking to one's opinions is the surest proof of stupidity. Is there anything...

Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.

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

Riches like glory or health have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleased to len...

I listen with attention to the judgment of all men;but so far as I can remember,I have followed none...

Oh what a valiant faculty is hope.

I never rebel so much against France as not to regard Paris with a friendly eye; she has had my hear...

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

The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.

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

Did I know myself less, I might perhaps venture to handle something or other to the bottom, and to b...

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

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.

He lives happy and master of himself who can say as each day passes on, "I have lived.

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

Without doubt, it is a delightful harmony when doing and saying go together.

It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.

The highest wisdom is continual cheerfulness such a state like the region above the moon is alway...

I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate ...

Not being able to govern events I govern myself.

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

We are all of us richer than we think we are.

Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward as in knowing how to...

Fear desire hope still push us on toward the future.

Whatever is enforced by command is more imputed to him who exacts than to him who performs.