Quotes By Michel De Montaigne

Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie.

It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. A spirited mind never stops within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength.

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

Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.

Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.

The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.

When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.

Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream.

For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.

Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.

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

The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

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

A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.

How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.

We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany.

I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.

The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.

It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.

It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.

I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.

Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.

The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.

Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet - the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.