A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
Ambition is not a vice of little people.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
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 Quote
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 Quote
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
He who fears will suffer, he already suffers from his fear.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
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 Quote
I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man's estate.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
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 Quote
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 Quote
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 Quote
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 Quote
If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
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 Quote
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 Quote
In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
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 Quote
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 Quote
It is an absolute and virtually divine perfection to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
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 Quote
Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
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 Quote
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 Quote
Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
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 Quote
Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
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 Quote
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 Quote
The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
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 Quote
The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
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 Quote
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
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 Quote
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
- Michel de Montaigne Quote
