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I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man's estate.

Michel de Montaigne
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Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.
Michel de Montaigne
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
Michel de Montaigne
A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them.
Michel de Montaigne
In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.
Michel de Montaigne
I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.
Michel de Montaigne
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
Michel de Montaigne
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.
Michel de Montaigne
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
Michel de Montaigne
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
Michel de Montaigne
Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
Michel de Montaigne
No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.
Michel de Montaigne
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.
Michel de Montaigne
We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany.
Michel de Montaigne
The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.
Michel de Montaigne
Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.
Michel de Montaigne
It is an absolute and virtually divine perfection to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.
Michel de Montaigne
Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.
Michel de Montaigne
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.
Michel de Montaigne
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
Michel de Montaigne
The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.
Michel de Montaigne
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.
Michel de Montaigne
Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.
Michel de Montaigne
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
Michel de Montaigne
I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
Michel de Montaigne
The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
Michel de Montaigne
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
Michel de Montaigne
A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.
Michel de Montaigne
I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.
Michel de Montaigne
When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
Michel de Montaigne
Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.
Michel de Montaigne
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
Michel de Montaigne
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
Michel de Montaigne
We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.
Michel de Montaigne
Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.
Michel de Montaigne
Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.
Michel de Montaigne
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.
Michel de Montaigne
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
Michel de Montaigne
There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.
Michel de Montaigne
There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
Michel de Montaigne
Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.
Michel de Montaigne
How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!
Michel de Montaigne
'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
Michel de Montaigne
The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.
Michel de Montaigne
Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.
Michel de Montaigne
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.
Michel de Montaigne
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.
Michel de Montaigne
An unattempted lady could not vaunt of her chastity.
Michel de Montaigne
One may be humble out of pride.
Michel de Montaigne