Michel de Montaigne Quotes

591 Sourced Quotes

What kind of truth is this which is true on one side of a mountain and false on the other?

Michel de Montaigne
Have you known how to take rest? You have done more than he who hath taken empires and cities.

Michel de Montaigne
This idea is more surely understood by interrogation; WHAT DO I KNOW? which I bear as my motto with the emblem of a pair of scales.

Michel de Montaigne
To call out for the hand of the enemy is a rather extreme measure, yet a better one, I think, than to remain in continual fever over an accident that has no remedy. But since all the precautions that a man can take are full of uneasiness and uncertainty, it is better to prepare with fine assurance for the worst that can happen, and derive some consolation from the fact that we are not sure that it will happen.

Michel de Montaigne
How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!

Michel de Montaigne
Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate.

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

Michel de Montaigne
As by some might be saide of me: that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange floures, and have put nothing of mine unto it, but the thred to binde them. Certes, I have given unto publike opinion, that these borrowed ornaments accompany me; but I meane not they should cover or hide me...

Michel de Montaigne
We easily enough confess in others an advantage of courage, strength, experience, activity, and beauty; but an advantage in judgment we yield to none.

Michel de Montaigne
Accustom him to everything, that he may not be a Sir Paris, a carpet-knight, 5 but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man.

Michel de Montaigne
I moreover affirm that our wisdom itself, and wisest consultations, for the most part commit themselves to the conduct of chance.

Michel de Montaigne
I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.

Michel de Montaigne
Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.

Michel de Montaigne
The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle and without eccentricity.

Michel de Montaigne
I do not know whether I would not like much better to have produced one perfectly formed child by intercourse with the muses than by intercourse with my wife.

Michel de Montaigne
Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope, that in a mortal subject, and in a moment, makes nothing of usurping infinity, immensity, eternity, and of supplying its masters indigence, at its pleasure, with all things he can imagine or desire!

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

Michel de Montaigne
Virtue shuns ease as a companion…It demands a rough and thorny path.

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
Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary.

Michel de Montaigne
There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.

Michel de Montaigne
There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.

Michel de Montaigne
Authors communicate with the people by some special extrinsic mark; I am the first to do so by my entire being, as Michel de Montaigne.

Michel de Montaigne
What we are told of the inhabitants of Brazil, that they never die but of old age, is attributed to the tranquility and serenity of their climate; I rather attribute it to the tranquility and serenity of their souls, which are free from all passion, thought, or any absorbing and unpleasant labors. Those people spend their lives in an admirable simplicity and ignorance, without letters, without law, without king, without any manner of religion.

Michel de Montaigne
But the touch or company of any man whatsoever stirreth up their heat, which in their solitude was hushed and quiet, and lay as cinders raked up in ashes.

Michel de Montaigne