186 Quotes & Sayings By Michel De Montaigne

I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself. Michel De Montaigne

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

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

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

Though the ancient poet in Plutarch tells us we must not trouble the gods with our affairs because they take no heed of our angers and disputes, we can never enough decry the disorderly sallies of our minds. Michel De Montaigne

It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance. Michel De Montaigne

There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience… These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant; and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us; it is the only payment that can never fail. “On Repentance Michel De Montaigne

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

...were these Essays of mine considerable enough to deserve a critical judgment, it might then, I think, fallout that they would not much take with common and vulgar capacities, nor be very acceptable to the singular and excellent sort of men; the first would not understand them enough, and the last too much; and so they may hover in the middle region. Michel De Montaigne

Did I know myself less, I might perhaps venture to handle something or other to the bottom, and to be deceived in my own inability; but sprinkling here one word and there another, patterns cut from severalpieces and scattered without design and without engaging myself too far, I am not responsible for them, or obliged to keep close to my subject, without varying at my own liberty and pleasure, and giving up myself to doubt and uncertainty, and to myown governing method, ignorance. Michel De Montaigne

Demetrius the grammarian finding in the temple of Delphos a knot of philosophers set chatting together, said to them, “Either I am much deceived, or by your cheerful and pleasant countenances, you are engaged in no very deep discourse.” To which one of them, Heracleon the Megarean, replied: “ ’Tis for such as are puzzled about inquiring whether the future tense of the verb Ballo be spelt with adouble L, or that hunt after the derivation of the comparatives Cheirou and Beltiou, and the superlatives Cheiriotou and Beliotou, to knit their brows whilst discoursing of their science; but as to philosophical discourses, they always divert and cheer up those that entertain them, and never deject them or make them sad. Michel De Montaigne

The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough. Michel De Montaigne

I know not what quintessence of all this mixture, which, seizing my whole will, carried it to plunge and lose itself in his, and that having seized his whole will, brought it back with equal concurrence and appetite to plunge and lose itself in mine. Michel De Montaigne

As concerning marriage, besides that it is a covenant, the entrance into which only is free, but the continuance in it forced and compulsory, having another dependence than that of our own free will, and a bargain commonly contracted to other ends, there almost always happens a thousand intricacies in it to unravel, enough to break the thread and to divert the current of a lively affection: whereas friendship has no manner of business or traffic with aught but itself. Moreover, to say truth, the ordinary talent of women is not such as is sufficient to maintain the conference and communication required to the support of this sacred tie; nor do they appear to be endued with constancy of mind, to sustain the pinch of so hard and durable a knot. And doubtless, if without this, there could be such a free and voluntary familiarity contracted, where not only the souls might have this entire fruition, but the bodies also might share in the alliance, and a man be engaged throughout, the friendship would certainly be more full and perfect; but it is without example that this sex has ever yet arrived at such perfection; and, by the common consent of the ancient schools, it is wholly rejected from it. Michel De Montaigne

It is not reasonable that art should win the place of honor over our great and powerful mother Nature. We have so overloaded the beauty and richness of her works by our inventions that we have quite smothered her. Michel De Montaigne

Antigonus, having taken one of his soldiers into a great degree of favor and esteem for his valor, gave his physicians strict charge to cure him of a long and inward disease under which he had a great while languished, and observing that, after his cure, he went much more coldly to work than before, he asked him what had so altered and cowed him: “Yourself, sir, ” replied the other, “by having eased me of the pains that made me weary of my life. Michel De Montaigne

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

Can anything be imagined so ridiculous, that this miserable and wretched creature [man], who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole? Michel De Montaigne

No passion disturbs the soundness of our judgement as anger does. Michel De Montaigne

The natural heat, say the good-fellows, first seats itself in the feet: that concerns infancy; thence it mounts into the middleregion, where it makes a long abode and produces, in my opinion, the sole true pleasures of human life; all other pleasures in comparison sleep; towards the end, like a vapor that still mounts upward, it arrives at the throat, where it makes its final residence, and concludes the progress. Michel De Montaigne

Is it that we pretend to a reformation? Truly, no: but it may be we are more addicted to Venus than our fathers were. They are two exercises that thwart and hinder one another in their vigor. Lechery weakens our stomach on the one side; and on the other sobriety renders us more spruce and amorous for the exercise of love. Michel De Montaigne

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

Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own. Michel De Montaigne

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

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

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

If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men. Michel De Montaigne

I have heard Silvius, an excellent physician of Paris, say that lest the digestive faculties of the stomach should grow idle, it were not amiss once a month to rouse them by this excess, and to spur them lest they should grow dull and rusty; and one author tells us that the Persians used to consult about their mostimportant affairs after being well warmed with wine. Michel De Montaigne

Excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgments. Michel De Montaigne

Il n'est si homme de bien, qu'il mette à l'examen des loix toutes ses actions et pensées, qui ne soit pendable dix fois en sa vie.( There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.) Michel De Montaigne

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

I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind. Michel De Montaigne

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

There is no passion so much transports thesincerity of judgement as doth anger Michel De Montaigne

We are all lumps, and of so various and inform a contexture, that every piece plays, every moment, its own game, and there is as much difference betwixt us and ourselves as betwixt us and others. Michel De Montaigne

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

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

Atheism being a proposition as unnatural as monstrous, difficult also and hard to establish in the human understanding, how arrogant soever, there are men enough seen, out of vanity and pride, to be the authors of extraordinary and reforming opinions, and outwardly to affect the profession of them; who, if they are such fools, have, nevertheless, not the power to plant them in their own conscience. Michel De Montaigne

A man is not hurt so much by what happens, as by his opinion of what happens. Michel De Montaigne

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

We can be knowledgeable with another man's knowledge, but we can't be wise with another man's wisdom. Michel De Montaigne

Had I been placed among those nations which are said to live still in the sweet freedom of nature's first laws, I assure you I should very gladly have portrayed myself here entire and wholly naked. Thus, reader, I am myself the matter of my book; you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and vain a subject. Michel De Montaigne

Plato forbids children wine till eighteen years of age, and to get drunk till forty; but, after forty, gives them leave to please themselves, and to mix a little liberally in their feasts the influence of Dionysos, that good deity who restores to younger men their gaiety and to old men their youth..fit to inspire old men with mettle to divert themselves in dancing and music; things of great use, and that they dare not attempt when sober. Michel De Montaigne

I find I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardor of dispute, I make myself submit to my adversary’s force of reason, than I am pleased with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness. Michel De Montaigne

Pride and curiosity are the two scourges of our souls. The latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved and undecided. Michel De Montaigne

And in this we must for the most part entertain ourselves with ourselves, and so privately that no exotic knowledge or communication be admitted there; there to laugh and to talk, as if without wife, children, goods, train, or attendance, to the end that when it shall so fall out that we must lose any or all of these, it may be no new thing to be without them. We have a mind pliable in itself; that will be company; that has wherewithal to attack and to defend, to receive and to give: let us not then fear in this solitude to languish under an uncomfortable vacuity. Michel De Montaigne

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

A man with nothing to lend should refrain from borrowing. Michel De Montaigne

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to live to yourself. Michel 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 De Montaigne

What a prodigious conscience must that be that can be at quiet within itself whilst it harbors under thesame roof, with so agreeing and so calm a society, both the crime and the judge? Michel De Montaigne

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

This emperor was arbiter of the whole world at nineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty before he could be fit to determine a dispute about a gutter. 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 I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways. Michel 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 De Montaigne

From books all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honourable pastime: or if I do study, I seek only that branch of learning which deals with knowing myself and which teaches me how to live and die well... Michel De Montaigne

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

We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life. Michel De Montaigne

Between ourselves, there are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct. Michel De Montaigne

Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener. Michel De Montaigne

Writing does not cause misery, it is born of misery. Michel De Montaigne

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

I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits. Michel De Montaigne

The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live with purpose. Michel De Montaigne

A man must live in the world and make the best of it such as it is. Michel De Montaigne

Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself. Michel De Montaigne

There is no passion so much transports the sincerity of judgement as doth anger. Michel De Montaigne

He who fears he shall suffer already suffers what he fears. Michel De Montaigne

The clearest sign of wisdom is continued cheerfulness. Michel De Montaigne