Michel de Montaigne

Take care that old age does not wrinkle your spirit even more than your face.

There never were in the world two opinions alike no more than two hairs or two grains the most universal quality is diversity.

Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.

The most manifest sign of wisdom is continued cheerfulness.

It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.

A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them.

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

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

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.

We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.

No wind favors he who has no destined port.

Wickedness sucks in the greater part of its own venom and poisons itself therewith

If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.

Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.

Give place to others, as others have given place to you. Equality is the soul of equity. Who can complain of being comprehended in the same destiny, wherein all are involved?

Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.

Pride and curiosity are the two scourges of our souls. The latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved and undecided.

There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.

No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.

We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany.

The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.

Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.

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

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

O human creatureyou are the investigator without knowledge the magistrate without jurisdiction and all in all the fool of the farce.

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.

In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum.

It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.

Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.

I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.

The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.

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

A man should think less of what he eats and more with whom he eats because no food is so satisfying as good company.

Most pleasures embrace us but to strangle.

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.

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

Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest, as the means that accommodates human life with a soft and easy tranquility, and gives us a pure and pleasant taste of living, without which all other pleasure would be extinct.

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

The great glorious masterpiece of man is to know how to live with purpose.

Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.

Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.

I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.

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

There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.

Rash and incessant scolding runs into custom and renders itself despised.

We should always, as near as we can, be booted and spurred, and ready to go, and, above all things, take care, at that time, to have no business with any one but one's self. Why for so short a life tease ourselves with so many projects?

There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.

Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.

Decency not to dare to do that in public which it is decent enough to do in private.

How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!

No passion disturbs the soundness of our judgement as anger does.

'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.

The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.

It is equally pointless to weep because we won't be alive a hundred years from now as that we were not here a hundred years ago.

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

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

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.

No noble thing can be done without risks.

If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.

Obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at least in vigor and stability.

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.

An unattempted lady could not vaunt of her chastity.

One may be humble out of pride.

A strong imagination begetteth opportunity.

There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.

I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.

The world is but a perpetual see-saw.

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself.

The most universal quality is diversity.

Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.

The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things.

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

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

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget.

If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself.

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.

We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.

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

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

I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.

Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.

Glory and repose are things that cannot possibly inhabit in one and the same place.

Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.

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

The finest thing in the world is knowing how to belong to oneself.

The birth of all things is weak and tender and therefore we should have our eyes intent on beginnings.

Excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgments.