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

Why do people respect the package rather than the man?

— 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

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

We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

— 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

We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn.

— Michel de Montaigne

[I]n my country, when they would say a man has no sense, they say, such an one has no memory; and when I complain of the defect of mine, they do not believe me, and reprove me, as though I accused myself for a fool: not discerning the difference betwixt memory and understanding, which is to make matters still worse for me. But they do me wrong; for experience, rather, daily shows us, on the contrary, that a strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment.

— 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

As for extraordinary things, all the provision in the world would not suffice.

— Michel de Montaigne

In my opinion, every rich man is a miser.

— Michel de Montaigne

How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among the friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out.

— 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

Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so.

— Michel de Montaigne

Whatever can be done another day can be done today.

— Michel de Montaigne

All the opinions in the world point out that pleasure is our aim.

— Michel de Montaigne

He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.

— Michel de Montaigne

The day of your birth leads you to death as well as to life.

— Michel de Montaigne

Live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead.

— Michel de Montaigne

Wherever your life ends, it is all there. 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

All of the days go toward death and the last one arrives there.

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

To call out for the hand of the enemy is a rather extreme measure, yet a better one, I think, than to remain in continual fever over an accident that has no remedy. But since all the precautions that a man can take are full of uneasiness and uncertainty, it is better to prepare with fine assurance for the worst that can happen, and derive some consolation from the fact that we are not sure that it will happen.

— Michel de Montaigne

Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head.

— Michel de Montaigne

There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.

— Michel de Montaigne

He who does not give himself leisure to be thirsty cannot take pleasure in drinking.

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

A true prayer and religious reconciling of ourselves to Almighty God cannot enter into an impure soul, subject at the very time to the dominion of Satan. He who calls God to his assistance whilst in a course of vice, does as if a cut-purse should call a magistrate to help him, or like those who introduce the name of God to the attestation of a lie.

— Michel de Montaigne

There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.

— Michel de Montaigne

It is the part of cowardice, not of courage, to go and crouch in a hole under a massive tomb, to avoid the blows of fortune.

— Michel de Montaigne

Virtue refuses facility for her companion … the easy, gentle, and sloping path that guides the footsteps of a good natural disposition is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.

— Michel de Montaigne

For my own part, I cannot without grief see so much as an innocent beast pursued and killed that has no defence, and from which we have received no offence at all.

— Michel de Montaigne

The sage says that all that is under heaven incurs the same law and the same fate.

— Michel de Montaigne

As far as fidelity is concerned, there is no animal in the world as treacherous as man.

— Michel de Montaigne

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.

— Michel de Montaigne

The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.

— Michel de Montaigne

The first law that ever God gave to man was a law of pure obedience; it was a commandment naked and simple, wherein man had nothing to inquire after, nor to dispute; forasmuch as to obey is the proper office of a rational soul, acknowledging a heavenly superior and benefactor.

— Michel de Montaigne

Man is forming thousands of ridiculous relations between himself and God.

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

There must then be something that is better, and that must be God. When you see a stately and stupendous edifice, though you do not know who is the owner of it, you would yet conclude it was not built for rats. And this divine structure, that we behold of the celestial palace, have we not reason to believe that it is the residence of some possessor, who is much greater than we?

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

We are no nearer heaven on the top of Mount Cenis than at the bottom of the sea; take the distance with your astrolabe. They debase God even to the carnal knowledge of women, to so many times, and so many generations.

— Michel de Montaigne

It was truly very good reason that we should be beholden to God only, and to the favour of his grace, for the truth of so noble a belief, since from his sole bounty we receive the fruit of immortality, which consists in the enjoyment of eternal beatitude.... The more we give and confess to owe and render to God, we do it with the greater Christianity.

— Michel de Montaigne

How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

A man may be humble through vainglory.

— Michel de Montaigne

I find that the best goodness I have has some tincture of vice.

— Michel de Montaigne

Saying is one thing and doing is another.

— Michel de Montaigne

As far as physicians go, chance is more valuable than knowledge.

— Michel de Montaigne

Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.

— Michel de Montaigne

There were never in the world two opinions alike, any more than two hairs or two grains. Their most universal quality is diversity.

— Michel de Montaigne

I will follow the good side right to the fire, but not into it if I can help it.

— Michel de Montaigne

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

— Michel de Montaigne

I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.

— Michel de Montaigne

Few men have been admired by their own households.

— Michel de Montaigne

Malice sucks up the greatest part of its own venom, and poisons itself.

— Michel de Montaigne

Non pudeat dicere, quod non pudet sentire: "Let no man be ashamed to speak what he is not ashamed to think."

— 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

It (marriage) happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

— Michel de Montaigne

Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.

— Michel de Montaigne

A man must be a little mad if he does not want to be even more stupid.

— Michel de Montaigne

At the very beginning of my fevers and sicknesses that cast me down, whilst still entire, and but little, disordered in health, I reconcile myself to Almighty God by the last Christian, offices, and find myself by so doing less oppressed and more easy, and have got, methinks, so much the better of my disease. And I have yet less need of a notary or counsellor than of a physician.

— 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

I have seen no more evident monstrosity and miracle in the world than myself.

— Michel de Montaigne

There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.

— Michel de Montaigne

It is more of a job to interpret the interpretations than to interpret the things, and there are more books about books than about any other subject: we do nothing but write glosses about each other.

— Michel de Montaigne

For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits.

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

He who remembers the evils he has undergone, and those that have threatened him, and the slight causes that have changed him from one state to another, prepares himself in that way for future changes and for recognizing his condition. The life of Caesar has no more to show us than our own; an emperor's or an ordinary man's, it is still a life subject to all human accidents.

— Michel de Montaigne

Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do.

— Michel de Montaigne

In this present that God has made us, there is nothing unworthy our care; we stand accountable for it even to a hair; and is it not a commission to man, to conduct man according to his condition; 'tis express, plain, and the very principal one, and the Creator has seriously and strictly prescribed it to us. Authority has power only to work in regard to matters of common judgment, and is of more weight in a foreign language; therefore let us again charge at it in this place

— Michel de Montaigne

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.

— Michel de Montaigne

Man in sooth is a marvellous, vain, fickle, and unstable subject.

— Michel de Montaigne

All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate.

— Michel de Montaigne

It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.

— 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

He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.

— 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 laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.

— Michel de Montaigne

Accustom him to everything, that he may not be a Sir Paris, a carpet-knight, 5 but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man.

— Michel de Montaigne

We were halves throughout, and to that degree that methinks by outliving him I defraud him of his part.

— Michel de Montaigne

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

— Michel de Montaigne

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

— Michel de Montaigne

A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.

— Michel de Montaigne

Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at the expense of life.

— Michel de Montaigne

Plato says, "'T is to no purpose for a sober man to knock at the door of the Muses;" and Aristotle says "that no excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of folly."

— Michel de Montaigne

And not to serve for a table-talk.

— Michel de Montaigne

To which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who confers a benefit on any one loves him better than he is beloved by him again.

— Michel de Montaigne

The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all; they will chew our meat for us.

— Michel de Montaigne

The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write.

— Michel de Montaigne

She [virtue] requires a rough and stormy passage; she will have either outward difficulties to wrestle with, 11 … or internal difficulties.

— Michel de Montaigne

There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.

— Michel de Montaigne

Some impose upon the world that they believe that which they do not; others, more in number, make themselves believe that they believe, not being able to penetrate into what it is to believe.

— Michel de Montaigne

When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?

— Michel de Montaigne

'T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things might certainly conclude as to both the future and the past.

— Michel de Montaigne

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould…. The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour causes a war betwixt princes.

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

Why may not a goose say thus: "All the parts of the universe I have an interest in: the earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me; the stars have their influence upon me; I have such an advantage by the winds and such by the waters; there is nothing that yon heavenly roof looks upon so favourably as me. I am the darling of Nature! Is it not man that keeps and serves me?"

— Michel de Montaigne

Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are formed and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing, as bears leisurely lick their cubs into form.

— Michel de Montaigne

He that I am reading seems always to have the most force.

— Michel de Montaigne

Apollo said that every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the place where he chanced to be.

— Michel de Montaigne

How many worthy men have we seen survive their own reputation!

— Michel de Montaigne

The mariner of old said to Neptune in a great tempest, "O God! thou mayest save me if thou wilt, and if thou wilt thou mayest destroy me; but whether or no, I will steer my rudder true."

— Michel de Montaigne

One may be humble out of pride.

— Michel de Montaigne

I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice.

— Michel de Montaigne

Saying is one thing, doing another.

— Michel de Montaigne

My trade and art is to live.

— Michel de Montaigne

Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?

— Michel de Montaigne

Nature forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, not to seem.

— Michel de Montaigne

There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

Like rowers, who advance backward.

— Michel de Montaigne

I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more as I grow older.

— Michel de Montaigne

Few men have been admired by their own domestics.

— Michel de Montaigne

It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

— Michel de Montaigne

And to bring in a new word by the head and shoulders, they leave out the old one.

— Michel de Montaigne

All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.

— Michel de Montaigne

'T is so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so. The strange lustre that surrounds him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there broken and dissipated, being stopped and filled by the prevailing light.

— Michel de Montaigne

We are born to inquire after truth; it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.

— Michel de Montaigne

I moreover affirm that our wisdom itself, and wisest consultations, for the most part commit themselves to the conduct of chance.

— Michel de Montaigne

What if he has borrowed the matter and spoiled the form, as it oft falls out?

— Michel de Montaigne

The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.

— Michel de Montaigne

Not because Socrates said so,… I look upon all men as my compatriots.

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

My appetite comes to me while eating.

— 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

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

— Michel de Montaigne

Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.

— Michel de Montaigne

Saturninus said, "Comrades, you have lost a good captain to make him an ill general."

— Michel de Montaigne

A little folly is desirable in him that will not be guilty of stupidity.

— Michel de Montaigne

Habit is a second nature.

— Michel de Montaigne

We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled.

— Michel de Montaigne

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.

— Michel de Montaigne

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.

— Michel de Montaigne

I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them together.

— Michel de Montaigne

No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.

— Michel de Montaigne

Amongst so many borrowed things, I am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.

— Michel de Montaigne

I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have.

— Michel de Montaigne

For truth itself has not the privilege to be spoken at all times and in all sorts.

— Michel de Montaigne

The diversity of physical arguments and opinions embraces all sorts of methods.

— Michel de Montaigne

I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head.

— Michel de Montaigne

I, who have so much and so universally adored this [greek], "excellent mediocrity," 32 of ancient times, and who have concluded the most moderate measure the most perfect, shall I pretend to an unreasonable and prodigious old age?

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— 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

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

No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.

— Michel de Montaigne

My trade and art is to live.

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.

— Michel de Montaigne

Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.

— Michel de Montaigne

Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.

— Michel de Montaigne

Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.

— Michel de Montaigne

There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge.

— Michel de Montaigne

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— 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 do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.

— Michel de Montaigne

Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.

— Michel de Montaigne