Michel de Montaigne Quotes

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.

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

If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men.

We are all of us richer than we think we are.

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

Je hay entre autres vices, cruellement la cruauté, et par nature et par jugement, comme l'extreme de tous les vices.

To an atheist all writings tend to atheism: he corrupts the most innocent matter with his own venom.

Cowardice is the mother of cruelty.

Had I been placed among those nations which are said to live still in the sweet freedom of nature's first laws, I assure you I should very gladly have portrayed myself here entire and wholly naked.Thus, reader, I am myself the matter of my book; you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and vain a subject.

We undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits their sickness and their health.

When I religiously confess myself to myself I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice.

The clearest sign of wisdom is continued cheerfulness.

Il n'est si homme de bien, qu'il mette à l'examen des loix toutes ses actions et pensées, qui ne soit pendable dix fois en sa vie.(There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.)

Whatever is enforced by command is more imputed to him who exacts than to him who performs.

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

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

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

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

The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.

The thing I fear most is fear.

I walk firmer and more secure up hill than down.

Is it that we pretend to a reformation? Truly, no: but it may be we are more addicted to Venus than our fathers were. They are two exercises that thwart and hinder one another in their vigor. Lechery weakens our stomach on the one side; and on the other sobriety renders us more spruce and amorous for the exercise of love.

Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.

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

Les naturels sanguinaires à l'endroit des bestes, tesmoignent une propension naturelle à la cruauté.

I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.

The Ancient Mariner said to Neptune during a great storm "O God you will save me if you wish but I am going to go on holding my tiller straight."

We need but little learning to live happily.

The beauty of stature is the only beauty of men.

A man with nothing to lend should refrain from borrowing.

Difficulty is a coin which the learned conjure with so as not to reveal the vanity of their studies and which human stupidity is keen to accept in payment

The Ancient Mariner said to Neptune during a great storm 'O God you will save me if you wish but I am going to go on holding my tiller straight.'

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

He lives happy and master of himself who can say as each day passes on, "I have lived.

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.

Heureuse la mort qui oste le loisir aux apprests de tel equipage.

Obstinacy and heat in sticking to one's opinions is the surest proof of stupidity. Is there anything so cocksure so immovable so disdainful so contemplative so solemn and serious as an ass?

We should tend our freedom wisely.