Michel de Montaigne Quotes

No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.

Women when they marry buy a cat in the bag.

God sends the cold according to the coat.

It is indeed the boundary of life, beyond which we are not to pass; which the law of nature has pitched for a limit not to be exceeded.

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.

I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future.

Who feareth to suffer suffereth already, because he feareth.

The body enjoys a great share in our being, and has an eminent place in it. Its structure and composition, therefore, are worthy of proper consideration.

No spiritual mind remains within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its own strength.

It is not without good reason, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.

I give my opinion not as being good, but as being my own.

Men do not know the natural infirmity of their mind: it does nothing but ferret and quest, and keeps incessantly whirling around, building up and becoming entangled in its own work, like silkworms, and is suffocated in it. A mouse in a pitch barrel...thinks it notices from a distance some sort of glimmer of imaginary light and truth; but while running toward it, it is crossed by so many difficulties and obstacles, and diverted by so many new quests, that it strays from the road, bewildered.

It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one.

Kings and philosophers defecate, and so do ladies.

Examples teach us that in military affairs, and all others of a like nature, study is apt to enervate and relax the courage of man, rather than to give strength and energy to the mind.

An honest man is not accountable for the vice and folly of his trade, and therefore ought not to refuse the exercise of it. It is the custom of his country, and there is profit in it. We must live by the world, and such as we find it, so make use of it.

The smallest annoyances, disturb us the most.

We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game.

Lovers are angry, reconciled, entreat, thank, appoint, and finally speak all things, by their.

Happiness involves working toward meaningful goals.

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.

A good marriage (if any there be) refuses the conditions of love and endeavors to present those of amity.

Saying is one thing and doing is another; we are to consider the sermon and the preacher distinctly and apart.

Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it; and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything, to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever.

Praise is always pleasing, let it come from whom, or upon what account it will.

Opinion is a powerful party, bold, and without measure.

It is a human tendency "to measure truth and error by our capacity."

Whatever the Benefits of Fortune are , they yet require a Palate fit to relish and taste them; 'Tis Fruition, and not Possession, that renders us Happy.

We must learn to suffer what we cannot evade.

A man may by custom fortify himself against pain, shame, and suchlike accidents; but as to death, we can experience it but once, and are all apprentices when we come to it

After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to the spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the slaughter of men, to the gladiators.

There is nothing so extreme that is not allowed by the custom of some nation or other.

If I were of the trade, I should naturalize art as much as they "artialize" nature.

Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in show, like the statue of a public place.

To philosophize is nothing else than to prepare oneself for death.

He that had never seen a river, imagined the first he met with to be the sea.

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

No man dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours, than that which was before your birth, and concerneth you no more.

Even in the midst of compassion we feel within I know not what tart sweet titillation of malicious pleasure in seeing others suffer; children have the same feeling.

Speaking is half his that speaks, and half his that hears.

Only the fools are certain and assured.

When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; his accusations of himself are always believed; his praises never.

We are neither obstinately nor wilfully to oppose evils, nor truckle under them for want of courage, but that we are naturally to give way to them, according to their condition and our own, we ought to grant free passage to diseases; and I find they stay less with me who let them alone. And I have lost those which are reputed the most tenacious and obstinate of their own defervescence, without any help or art, and contrary to their rules. Let us a little permit nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we.

There is no passion so much transports the sincerity of judgment as doth anger

We do not correct the man we hang; we correct others by him.

To understand via the heart is not to understand.

The bitterness of the potion, and the abhorrence of the patient are necessary circumstances to the operation. It must be something to trouble and disturb the stomach that must purge and cure it.