We are never in search of things, but always in search of the search.

I can approve of those only who seek in tears for happiness.

Excuse me, pray." Without that excuse I would not have known there was anything amiss.

It is not in Montaigne, but in myself, that I find all that I see in him.

Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.

On the occasions when I have pondered over men's various activities, the dangers and worries they are exposed to at Court or at war, from which so many quarrels, passions, risky, often ill-conceived actions and so on are born, I have often said that man's unhappiness springs from one thing alone, his incapacity to stay quietly in one room.

Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere