Michel de Montaigne Quotes

Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.

My opinion is that we must lend ourselves to others and give ourselves only to ourselves. If my will happened to be prone to mortgage and attach itself, I would not last: I am too tender, both by nature and by practice.

We imagine much more appropriately an artisan on his toilet seat or on his wife than a great president, venerable by his demeanorand his ability. It seems to us that they do not stoop from their lofty thrones even to live.

Give me the provisions and whole apparatus of a kitchen, and I would starve.

The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.

Persons of mean understandings, not so inquisitive, nor so well instructed, are made good Christians, and by reverence and obedience, implicity believe, and abide by their belief.

To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value, is pusillanimity and cowardice.

The daughter-in-law of Pythagoras said that a woman who goes to bed with a man ought to lay aside her modesty with her skirt, and put it on again with her petticoat

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them if they will not apply themselves to me.

We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.

Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men.

We have more poets than judges and interpreters of poetry. It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one. There is, indeed, a certain low and moderate sort of poetry, that a man may well enough judge by certain rules of art; but the true, supreme, and divine poesy is equally above all rules and reason. And whoever discerns the beauty of it with the most assured and most steady sight sees no more than the quick reflection of a flash of lightning.

If your doctor does not think it good for you to sleep, to drink wine, or to eat of a particular dish, do not worry; I will find you another who will not agree with him.

And one might therefore say of me that in this book I have only made up a bunch of other people's flowers, and that of my own I have only provided the string that ties them together.

The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure; neither the greatest captains nor the greatest philosophers have disdained the use or science of eating well.

Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.

In truth, knowledge is a great and very useful quality; those who despise it give evidence enough of their stupidity. Yet I do not set its value at that extreme measure that some attribute to it.

I would rather produce my passions than brood over them at my expense; they grow languid when they have vent and expression. It is better that their point should operate outwardly than be turned against us.

If my intentions were not to be read in my eyes and voice, I should not have survived so long without quarrels and without harm, seeing the indiscreet freedom with which I say, right or wrong, whatever comes into my head.

Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another's net.

Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.

Long life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.

The religion of my doctor or my lawyer cannot matter. That consideration has nothing in common with the functions of the friendship they owe me.

The only thing certain is nothing is certain.

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould

Indeed, there is no such thing as an altogether ugly woman — or altogether beautiful.

Pleasure itself is painful at the bottom.

Thus we should beware of clinging to vulgar opinions, and judge things by reason's way, not by popular say.

A foreign war is a lot milder than a civil war.

Pythagoras used to say that life resembles the Olympic Games: a few people strain their muscles to carry off a prize; others bring trinkets to sell to the crowd for gain; and some there are, and not the worst, who seek no other profit than to look at the show and see how and why everything is done; spectators of the life of other people in order to judge and regulate their own.

Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy; research, the progress; ignorance, the end. There is, by heavens, a strong and generous kind of ignorance that yields nothing, for honour and courage, to knowledge: an ignorance to conceive which needs no less knowledge than to conceive knowledge.

A hair shirt does not always render those chaste who wear it.

This idea is more surely understood by interrogation; WHAT DO I KNOW? which I bear as my motto with the emblem of a pair of scales.

I would like to suggest that our minds are swamped by too much study and by too much matter just as plants are swamped by too much water or lamps by too much oil; that our minds, held fast and encumbered by so many diverse preoccupations, may well lose the means of struggling free, remaining bowed and bent under the load; except that it is quite otherwise: the more our souls are filled, the more they expand; examples drawn from far-off times show, on the contrary, that great soldiers ad statesmen were also great scholars.

The beginnings of all things are weak and tender. We must therefore be clear-sighted in the beginnings, for, as in their budding we discern not the danger, so in their full growth we perceive not the remedy.

Have you been able to think out and manage your own life? You have done the greatest task of all.... All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.

And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets?

The good opinion of the vulgar is injurious.

Who is only good that others may know it, and that he may be the better esteemed when 'tis known, who will do well but upon condition that his virtue may be known to men, is one from whom much service is not to be expected.

The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.

I am much afraid that we shall have very greatly hastened the decline and ruin of the New World by our contagion, and that we willhave sold it our opinions and our arts very dear.

To say less of yourself than is true is stupidity, not modesty. To pay yourself less than you are worth is cowardice and pusillanimity.

Learning is a good medicine: but no medicine is powerful enough to preserve itself from taint and corruption independently of defects in the jar that it is kept in. One man sees clearly but does not see straight: consequently he sees what is good but fails to follow it; he sees knowledge and does not use it.

It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my reason.

It is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing is more miserable or more proud than man.

Socrates thought and so do I that the wisest theory about the gods is no theory at all.

Why did I love her? Because it was her; because it was me.

Meditation is a rich and powerful method of study for anyone who knows how to examine his mind.