Quotes By Michel De Montaigne

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.

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.

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.

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.

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

Ambition is not a vice of little people.