Michel de Montaigne Quotes

588 Sourced Quotes

The first law that ever God gave to man was a law of pure obedience; it was a commandment naked and simple, wherein man had nothing to inquire after, nor to dispute; forasmuch as to obey is the proper office of a rational soul, acknowledging a heavenly superior and benefactor.

Michel de Montaigne
Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin; the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover; he only beats the water for another's net.

Michel de Montaigne
Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.

Michel de Montaigne
It is putting a very high price on one's conjectures to have someone roasted alive on their account.

Michel de Montaigne
All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.

Michel de Montaigne
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.

Michel de Montaigne
Man is forming thousands of ridiculous relations between himself and God.

Michel de Montaigne
It is not a mind, it is not a body that we educate, but it is a man, and we must not make two parts of him.

Michel de Montaigne
There is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy.

Michel de Montaigne
The vulgar and common esteem is seldom happy in hitting right; and I am much mistaken if, amongst the writings of my time, the worst are not those which have most gained the popular applause.

Michel de Montaigne
Thus we should beware of clinging to vulgar opinions, and judge things by reason's way, not by popular say.

Michel de Montaigne
The most evident token and apparent sign of true wisdom is a constant and unconstrained rejoicing.

Michel de Montaigne
We are nearer neighbors to ourselves than the whiteness of snow or the weight of stones are to us: if man does not know himself, how should he know his functions and powers?

Michel de Montaigne
A young man ought to cross his own rules, to awake his vigor, and to keep it from growing faint and rusty. And there is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is carried on by rule and discipline.

Michel de Montaigne
The judgment is an utensil proper for all subjects, and will have an oar in everything.

Michel de Montaigne
He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it.

Michel de Montaigne
Might I have had my own will, I would not have married Wisdom herself, if she would have had me.

Michel de Montaigne
In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge; of judgement and virtue, little news.

Michel de Montaigne
If love and ambition should be in equal balance, and come to jostle with equal force, I make no doubt but that the last would win the prize.

Michel de Montaigne
Beauty is the true prerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that our sex, though naturally requiring another sort of feature, is never in its lustre but when puerile and beardless, confused and mixed with theirs.

Michel de Montaigne
Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me--a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life; not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books.

Michel de Montaigne
In love, 'tis no other than frantic desire for that which flies from us.

Michel de Montaigne
We every day and every hour say things of another that we might more properly say of ourselves, could we but apply our observations to our own concerns.

Michel de Montaigne
The wise man should withdraw his soul within, out of the crowd, and keep it in freedom and power to judge things freely; but as for externals, he should wholly follow the accepted fashions and forms.

Michel de Montaigne
If by being overstudious, we impair our health and spoil our good humor, let us give it up.

Michel de Montaigne
This very Rome that we behold deserves our love...: the only common and universal city.

Michel de Montaigne
Sciences and Arts are not cast in a mold, but rather by little and little formed and shaped by often handling and polishing them over; even as bears fashion their young whelps by often licking them.

Michel de Montaigne
In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota; for my knowledge I cannot answer.

Michel de Montaigne
How often our involuntary facial motions testify to the thoughts we were keeping secret, and betray us to those around!

Michel de Montaigne
Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favorably and well in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life to alleviate the sense of them.

Michel de Montaigne