Michel de Montaigne Quotes

Pride dwells in the thought; the tongue can have but a very little share in it.

Saying is one thing and doing is another

The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from Custom.

Men ... are not agreed about any one thing, not even that heaven is over our heads.

After mature deliberation of counsel, the good Queen to establish a rule and immutable example unto all posterity, for the moderation and required modesty in a lawful marriage, ordained the number of six times a day as a lawful, necessary and competent limit.

A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.

We owe subjection and obedience to all our kings, whether good or bad, alike, for that has respect unto their office; but as to esteem and affection, these are only due to their virtue.

Most pleasures embrace us but to strangle.

I do not portray the thing in itself. I portray the passage; not a passing from one age to another, or, as the people put it, from seven years to seven years, but from day to day, from minute to minute.

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

Memory is a wonderfully useful tool, and without it judgement does its work with difficulty; it is entirely lacking in me.... Now,the more I distrust my memory, the more confused it becomes. It serves me better by chance encounter; I have to solicit it nonchalantly. For if I press it, it is stunned; and once it has begun to totter, the more I probe it, the more it gets mixed up and embarrassed. It serves me at its own time, not at mine.

This notion [skepticism] is more clearly understood by asking "What do I know?"

A strong imagination begetteth opportunity.

I speak to the paper, as I speak to the first person I meet.

He who does not live in some degree for others, hardly lives for himself.

There is nothing on which men are commonly more intent than on making a way for their opinions.

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.

I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.

The human face is a weak guarantee; yet it deserves some consideration. And if I had to whip the wicked, I would do so more severely to those who belied and betrayed the promises that nature had implanted on their brows; I would punish malice more harshly when it was hidden under a kindly appearance.

Plenty and indigence depend upon the opinion every one has of them; and riches, like glory of health, have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleaded to lend them.

And as hearbes and trees are bettered and fortified by being transplanted, so formes of speach are embellished and graced by variation.... As in our ordinary language, we shall sometimes meete with excellent phrases, and quaint metaphors, whose blithnesse fadeth through age, and colour is tarnish by to common using them.

An able reader often discovers in other people's writings perfections beyond those that the author put in or perceived, and lends them richer meanings and aspects.

Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.

There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.

Time steals away without any inconvenience.

We have the pleasures suitable to our lot; let us not usurp those of greatness. Ours are more natural and all the more solid and sure for being humbler. Since we will not do so out of conscience, at least out of ambition let us reject ambition.

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

Any time and any place can be used to study: his room, a garden, is table, his bed; when alone or in company; morning and evening. His chief study will be Philosophy, that Former of good judgement and character who is privileged to be concerned with everything.

The lack of wealth is easily repaired but the poverty of the soul is irreplaceable.

To distract myself from tiresome thoughts, I have only to resort to books; they easily draw my mind to themselves and away from other things.

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.

There is not one of us that would not be worse than kings, if so continually corrupted as they are with a sort of vermin called flatterers.

To make judgements about great and lofty things, a soul of the same stature is needed; otherwise we ascribe to them that vice which is our own.

How often, being moved under a false cause, if the person offending makes a good defense and presents us with a just excuse, are we angry against truth and innocence itself?

The world is but a school of inquisition; it is not who shall enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses.

I have never known a greater miracle, or monster, than myself.

I listen with attention to the judgment of all men; but so far as I can remember, I have followed none but my own.

Some, either from being glued to vice by a natural attachment, or from long habit, no longer recognize its ugliness.

The thing I fear most is fear.

Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest.

The judgment is an utensil proper for all subjects, and will have an oar in everything.

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

The knowledge of courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study. It is like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and an inclination to love one another at the first sight.

Their [the Skeptics'] way of speaking is: "I settle nothing. . . . I do not understand it. . . . Nothing seems true that may not seem false." Their sacramental word is . . . , which is to say, I suspend my judgment.

The most useful and honorable science and occupation for a woman is the science of housekeeping. I know some that are miserly, very few that are good managers.

It is very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of it.

I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more willfully obstinate.

The relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them.