I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind – and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNEI care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.
More Michel de Montaigne Quotes
-
-
A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
Confidence in others’ honesty is no light testimony of one’s own integrity.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
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.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
The thing I fear most is fear.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
Those who have compared our life to a dream were right… we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
The prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk – they are all part of the curriculum.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
In nine lifetimes, you’ll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE -
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
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.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE