Quotes By Michel De Montaigne

I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.

Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.

Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.

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

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

Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.

The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.

Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.

The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.

Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.

Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.

How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!

Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.

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

One may be humble out of pride.

The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.