Quotes By Michel De Montaigne

Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.

The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things.

No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.

The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.

Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.

We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.

If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.

Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.

There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.

Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.

I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.

If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.

The thing I fear most is fear.

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.

The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.

If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.

Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.

Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.