Michel De Montaigne Quotes
Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.
The births of all things are weak and tender and therefore we should have our eyes intent on beginnings.
In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.
The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man persuades another man to believe.
It is an absolute perfection... to get the very most out of one's individuality.
To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value, is pusillanimity and cowardice.
There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others.
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.
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
To how many blockheads of my time has a cold and taciturn demeanor procured the credit of prudence and capacity!
Difficulty is a coin the learned make use of like jugglers, to conceal the inanity of their art.
No-one is exempt from speaking nonsense – the only misfortune is to do it solemnly.
Truly it is reasonable to make a great distinction between the faults that come from our weakness and those that come from our wickedness.
Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.
The most evident token and apparent sign of true wisdom is a constant and unconstrained rejoicing.
Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.
Philosophical discussions habitually make men happy and joyful not frowning and sad.
Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.
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.
The receipts of cookery are swelled to a volume, but a good stomach excels them all; to which nothing contributes more than industry and temperance.
I leaf through books, I do not study them. What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else's.
The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure; neither the greatest captains nor the greatest philosophers have disdained the use or science of eating well.
A straight oar looks bent in the water. It matters not merely that we see a thing, but how we see it.
A person is bound to lose when he talks about himself; if he belittles himself, he is believed; if he praises himself, he isn't believed.
Pride and curiosity are the two scourges of our souls. The latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved and undecided.
We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them if they will not apply themselves to me.
Oh, a friend! How true is that old saying, that the enjoyment of one is sweeter and more necessary than that of the elements of water and fire!
