Michel de Montaigne Quotes

When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.

The pleasure we hold in esteem for the course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our time dedicated to it; we should refuse no occasion nor omit any opportunity of drinking, and always have it in our minds.

Lay a beam between these two towers of such width as we need to walk on: there is no philosophical wisdom of such great firmness that it can give us courage to walk on it as we should if it were on the ground.

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

What kind of truth is this which is true on one side of a mountain and false on the other?

Man is the sole animal whose nudities offend his own companions, and the only one who, in his natural actions, withdraws and hides himself from his own kind.

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

Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones.

If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions; but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.

I aim here only at revealing myself, who will perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me.

In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.

The worth of the mind consisteth not in going high, but in marching orderly.

I consider myself an average man, except in the fact that I consider myself an average man.

A well-bred man is always sociable and complaisant.

If falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be more on equal terms. For we would consider the contrary of what the liar said to be certain. But the opposite of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite field.

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

We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.

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

Men are tormented by the opinions they have of things, and not the things themselves.

One should be ever booted and spurred and ready to depart.

We judge a horse not only by its pace on a racecourse, but also by its walk, nay, when resting in its stable.

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

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

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

Miracles arise from our ignorance of nature, not from nature itself.

Business in a certain sort of men is a mark of understanding, and they are honored for it. Their souls seek repose in agitation, as children do by being rocked in a cradle. They may pronounce themselves as serviceable to their friends as troublesome to themselves. No one distributes his money to others, but every one therein distributes his time and his life. There is nothing of which we are so prodigal as of those two things, of which to be thrifty would be both commendable and useful.

It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.

A man must learn to endure patiently what he cannot avoid conveniently.

An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.

Now there cannot be first principles for men, unless the Divinity has revealed them; all the rest--beginning, middle, and end--isnothing but dreams and smoke.

The archer who overshoots his mark does no better than he who falls short of it.

If I were a maker of books I should compile a register, with comments, of different deaths. He who should teach people to die, would teach them to live.

In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota; for my knowledge I cannot answer.

Health is a precious thing, and the only one, in truth, meriting that a man should lay out not only his time, sweat, labor and goods, but also life itself to obtain it.

Friendship is a creature formed for a companionship not for a herd.

He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying.

The only good histories are those written by those who had command in the events they describe.

Now, since everything else is furnished with the exact amount of needle and thread required to maintain its being, it is in truth incredible that we alone should be brought into the world in a defective and indigent state, in a state such that we cannot maintain ourselves without external aid.

Nor is it enough to toughen up his soul; you must also toughen up his muscles.

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.

I would rather be old for a shorter time than be old before my time.

Traveling through the world produces a marvelous clarity in the judgment of men. We are all of us confined and enclosed within ourselves, and see no farther than the end of our nose. This great world is a mirror where we must see ourselves in order to know ourselves. There are so many different tempers, so many different points of view, judgments, opinions, laws and customs to teach us to judge wisely on our own, and to teach our judgment to recognize its imperfection and natural weakness.

In plain Truth, it is no Want, but rather Abundance that creates Avarice.

Off I go, rummaging about in books for sayings which please me.

For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.

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

Death pays all debts.

If to take up books were to take them in, and if to see them were to consider them, and to run through them were to grasp them, I should be wrong to make myself out quite as ignorant as I say I am.