Authors communicate with the people by some special extrinsic mark; I am the first to do so by my entire being, as Michel de Montaigne.

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

If others surpass you in knowledge, in charm, in strength, in fortune, you have other causes to blame for it; but if you yield tothem in stoutness of heart you have only yourself to blame.

I consider it equal injustice to set our heart against natural pleasures and to set our heart too much on them. We should neither pursue them, nor flee them; we should accept them.

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.

If faces were not alike, we could not distinguish men from beasts; if they were not different, we could not tell one man from another.

Sometimes it is a good choice not to choose at all.