Michel de Montaigne Quotes

591 Sourced Quotes

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

Michel de Montaigne
If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was I.

Michel de Montaigne
No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.

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

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

Michel de Montaigne
There is nothing so easy, so sweet, and so favourable, as the divine law: it calls and invites us to her, guilty and abominable as we are; extends her arms and receives us into her bosom, foul and polluted as we at present are, and are for the future to be. But then, in return, we are to look upon her with a respectful eye; we are to receive this pardon with all gratitude and submission, and for that instant at least, wherein we address ourselves to her, to have the soul sensible of the ills we have committed, and at enmity with those passions that seduced us to offend her;

Michel de Montaigne
Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.

Michel de Montaigne
A little of everything and nothing thoroughly, after the French fashion.

Michel de Montaigne
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.

Michel de Montaigne
Nature is a gentle guide, but not more sweet and gentle than prudent and just.

Michel de Montaigne
We are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak.

Michel de Montaigne
There must then be something that is better, and that must be God. When you see a stately and stupendous edifice, though you do not know who is the owner of it, you would yet conclude it was not built for rats. And this divine structure, that we behold of the celestial palace, have we not reason to believe that it is the residence of some possessor, who is much greater than we?

Michel de Montaigne
He who remembers the evils he has undergone, and those that have threatened him, and the slight causes that have changed him from one state to another, prepares himself in that way for future changes and for recognizing his condition. The life of Caesar has no more to show us than our own; an emperor's or an ordinary man's, it is still a life subject to all human accidents.

Michel de Montaigne
While our pulse beats and we feel emotion, let us put off the business. Things will truly seem different to us when we have quieted and cooled down. It is passion that is in command at first, it is passion that speaks, it is not we ourselves.

Michel de Montaigne
'T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things might certainly conclude as to both the future and the past.

Michel de Montaigne
In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.

Michel de Montaigne
Fie on the eloquence that leaves us craving itself, not things!

Michel de Montaigne
If atoms do, by chance, happen to combine themselves into so many shapes, why have they never combined together to form a house or a slipper? By the same token, why do we not believe that if innumerable letters of the Greek alphabet were poured all over the market-place they would eventually happen to form the text of the Iliad?

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

Michel de Montaigne
A man of understanding has lost nothing, if he has himself.

Michel de Montaigne
It needs good management to enjoy life. I enjoy it twice as much as others, for the measure of enjoyment depends on the greater or less attention that we give to it...The shorter my possession of life the deeper and fuller I must make it.

Michel de Montaigne
To how many blockheads of my time has a cold and taciturn demeanor procured the credit of prudence and capacity!

Michel de Montaigne
Tis the taste of effeminacy that disrelishes ordinary and accustomed things.

Michel de Montaigne
Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen.

Michel de Montaigne
In my youth I studied for ostentation; later, a little to gain wisdom; now, for recreation; never for gain.

Michel de Montaigne