Michel de Montaigne - Essays (1580)

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

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

Michel de Montaigne
Among the liberal arts, let us begin with the art that liberates us.

Michel de Montaigne
The body enjoys a great share in our being, and has an eminent place in it. Its structure and composition, therefore, are worthy of proper consideration.

Michel de Montaigne
A man may by custom fortify himself against pain, shame, and suchlike accidents; but as to death, we can experience it but once, and are all apprentices when we come to it

Michel de Montaigne
If virtue cannot shine bright, but by the conflict of contrary appetites, shall we then say that she cannot subsist without the assistance of vice, and that it is from her that she derives her reputation and honor?

Michel de Montaigne
It is no hard matter to get children; but after they are born, then begins the trouble, solicitude, and care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up.

Michel de Montaigne
I go out of my way, but rather by license than carelessness.... It is the inattentive reader
who loses my subject, not I. Some word about it will always be found off in a corner, which will not fail to be sufficient, though it takes little room.

Michel de Montaigne
Like the watermen who advance forward while they look backward.

Michel de Montaigne
Seeing that the Senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must have recourse to Reason; there is no reason but must be built upon another reason: so here we are retreating backwards to infinity.

Michel de Montaigne
If I were a maker of books I should compile a register, with comments, of different deaths. He who should teach people to die, would teach them to live.

Michel de Montaigne
I must use these great men's virtues as a cloak for my weakness.

Michel de Montaigne
Whatever is preached to us, and whatever we learn, we should still remember that it is man that gives, and man that receives; it is a mortal hand that presents it to us, it is a mortal hand that accepts it.

Michel de Montaigne
As great enmities spring from great friendships, and mortal distempers from vigorous health, so do the most surprising and the wildest frenzies from the high and lively agitations of our souls.

Michel de Montaigne
We hold death, poverty, and grief for our principal enemies; but this death, which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful things, who does not know that others call it the only secure harbor from the storm and tempests of life, the sovereign good of nature, the sole support of liberty, and the common and sudden remedy of all evils?

Michel de Montaigne
I see this evident, that we willingly accord to piety only the services that flatter our passions.

Michel de Montaigne
Not only does the wind of accidents stir me according to its blowing, but I am also stirred and troubled by the instability of my attitude.

Michel de Montaigne
I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can.

Michel de Montaigne
Long life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.

Michel de Montaigne
No man dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours, than that which was before your birth, and concerneth you no more.

Michel de Montaigne
I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and reason, as the worst of all the vices. But then I am so soft in this that I cannot seea chicken's neck wrung without distress, and cannot bear to hear the squealing of a hare between the teeth of my hounds.

Michel de Montaigne
Rash and incessant scolding runs into custom and renders itself despised.

Michel de Montaigne
Knowledge is an excellent drug; but no drug has virtue enough to preserve itself from corruption and decay, if the vessel be tainted and impure wherein it is put to keep.

Michel de Montaigne
It is the rule of rules, and the general law of all laws, that every person should observe those of the place where he is.

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
We have the pleasures suitable to our lot; let us not usurp those of greatness. Ours are more natural and all the more solid and sure for being humbler. Since we will not do so out of conscience, at least out of ambition let us reject ambition.

Michel de Montaigne
A learned man is not learned in all things; but a sufficient man is sufficient throughout, even to ignorance itself.

Michel de Montaigne
When Socrates, after being relieved of his irons, felt the relish of the itching that their weight had caused in his legs, he rejoiced to consider the close alliance between pain and pleasure.

Michel de Montaigne
The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, and with good reason; that passion alone, in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents

Michel de Montaigne
I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it.

Michel de Montaigne