Michel de Montaigne - Essays (1580)

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There is no doubt that Greek and Latin are great and handsome ornaments, but we buy them too dear.

Michel de Montaigne
There is nothing in which a horse's power is better revealed than in a neat, clean stop.

Michel de Montaigne
In true friendship, in which I am expert, I give myself to my friend more than I draw him to me. I not only like doing him good better than having him do me good, but also would rather have him do good to himself than to me; he does me most good when he does himself good.

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

Michel de Montaigne
Others form man; I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed, whom I should really make very different from whathe is if I had to fashion him over again. But now it is done.

Michel de Montaigne
It is indeed the boundary of life, beyond which we are not to pass; which the law of nature has pitched for a limit not to be exceeded.

Michel de Montaigne
I love a gay and sociable wisdom, and shun harshness and austerity in behaviour, holding every surly countenance suspect.

Michel de Montaigne
Just as in habiliments it is a sign of weakness to wish to make oneself noticeable by some peculiar and unaccustomed fashion, so, in language, the quest for new-fangled phrases and little-known words comes from a puerile and pedantic ambition.

Michel de Montaigne
Our speech has its weaknesses and its defects, like all the rest. Most of the occasions for the troubles of the world are grammatical.

Michel de Montaigne
Why dost thou complain of this world? It detains thee not; thy own cowardice is the cause, if thou livest in pain.

Michel de Montaigne
Every one is well or ill at ease, according as he finds himself! not he whom the world believes, but he who believes himself to be so, is content; and in him alone belief gives itself being and reality

Michel de Montaigne
Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in show, like the statue of a public place.

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

Michel de Montaigne
Even in the midst of compassion we feel within I know not what tart sweet titillation of malicious pleasure in seeing others suffer; children have the same feeling.

Michel de Montaigne
There is nothing on which men are commonly more intent than on making a way for their opinions.

Michel de Montaigne
It is probable that the principal credit of miracles, visions, enchantments, and such extraordinary occurrences comes from the power of imagination, acting principally upon the minds of the common people, which are softer.

Michel de Montaigne
We perceive no charms that are not sharpened, puffed out, and inflated by artifice. Those which glide along naturally and simply easily escape a sight so gross as ours.

Michel de Montaigne
Aesop, that great man, saw his master making water as he walked. "What!" he said, "Must we void ourselves as we run?" Use our timeas best we may, yet a great part of it will still be idly and ill spent.

Michel de Montaigne
Tis faith alone that vividly and certainly comprehends the deep mysteries of our religion.

Michel de Montaigne
If your physician does not think it good for you to sleep, to drink wine, or to eat such and such meats, never trouble yourself; I will find you another that shall not be of that opinion.

Michel de Montaigne
I, who am king of the matter I treat, and who owe an accounting for it to no one, do not for all that believe myself in all I write. I often hazard sallies of my mind which I mistrust.

Michel de Montaigne
It is an injustice that an old, broken, half-dead father should enjoy alone, in a corner of his hearth, possessions that would suffice for the advancement and maintenance of many children.

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
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
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
I seek in books only to give myself pleasure by honest amusement; or if I study, I seek only the learning that treats of the knowledge of myself and instructs me in how to die well and live well.

Michel de Montaigne
All opinions in the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end, although they differ as to the means of attaining it.

Michel de Montaigne
Poetry reproduces an indefinable mood that is more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful all naked, alive, and panting, as she is here in Virgil.

Michel de Montaigne
Order a purge for your brain, it will there be much better employed than upon your stomach.

Michel de Montaigne