Michel de Montaigne
I seek in the reading of books, only to please myself, by an honest diversion.Collection: Book
The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly.Collection: War
One open way of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and draws out discoveries, like wine and love.Collection: Wine
Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, prudently, and fully is a talent that few men have.Collection: Men
Marriage can be compared to a cage: birds outside it despair to enter, and birds within, to escape.Collection: Marriage
Books are a languid pleasure.Collection: Book
What a man hates, he takes seriously.Collection: Hate
To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, it is but to run to my books; they presently fix me to them, and drive the other out of my thoughts, and do not mutiny to see that I have only recourse to them for want of other more, real, natural, and lively conveniences; they always receive me with the same kindness.Collection: Running
Business in a certain sort of men is a mark of understanding, and they are honored for it. Their souls seek repose in agitation, as children do by being rocked in a cradle. They may pronounce themselves as serviceable to their friends as troublesome to themselves. No one distributes his money to others, but every one therein distributes his time and his life. There is nothing of which we are so prodigal as of those two things, of which to be thrifty would be both commendable and useful.Collection: Business
We perceive no charms that are not sharpened, puffed out, and inflated by artifice. Those which glide along naturally and simply easily escape a sight so gross as ours.Collection: Sight
The bees pillage the flowers here and there but they make honey of them which is all their own; it is no longer thyme or marjolaine: so the pieces borrowed from others he will transform and mix up into a work all his own.Collection: Flower
In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word.Collection: Life
Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones.Collection: Men
It is not reasonable that art should win the place of honor over our great and powerful mother Nature. We have so overloaded the beauty and richness of her works by our inventions that we have quite smothered her.Collection: Mother
.. since it was true that study, even when done properly, can only teach us what wisdom, right conduct and determination consist in, they wanted to put their children directly in touch with actual cases, teaching them not by hearsay but by actively assaying them, vigorously molding and forming them not merely by word and precept but chiefly by deeds and examples, so that wisdom should not be something which the soul knows but the soul's very essence and temperament, not something acquired but a natural property.Collection: Determination
Why did I love her? Because it was her; because it was me.Collection: Love
To philosophize is to doubt.Collection: Doubt
I enter into discussion and argument with great freedom and ease, inasmuch as opinion finds me in a bad soil to penetrate and take deep root in. No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, whatever contrast it offers to my own. There is no fancy so frivolous and so extravagant that it does not seem to me quite suitable to the production of the human mind.Collection: Roots
And one might therefore say of me that in this book I have only made up a bunch of other people's flowers, and that of my own I have only provided the string that ties them together.Collection: Flower
If virtue cannot shine bright, but by the conflict of contrary appetites, shall we then say that she cannot subsist without the assistance of vice, and that it is from her that she derives her reputation and honor?Collection: Shine Bright
Whenever a new discovery is reported to the world, they say first, It is probably not true, Then after, when the truth of the new proposition has been demonstrated beyond question, they say, Yes, it may be true, but it is not important. Finally, when sufficient time has elapsed to fully evidence its importance, they say, Yes, surely it is important, but it is no longer new.Collection: Discovery
Some men seem remarkable to the world in whom neither their wives nor their valets saw anything extraordinary. Few men have been admired by their servants.Collection: Men
Dreams are faithful interpreters of our inclinations; but there is art required to sort and understand them.Collection: Dream
And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets?Collection: Philosophy
Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen.Collection: God
Disappointment and feebleness imprint upon us a cowardly and valetudinarian virtue.Collection: Disappointment
Virtue shuns ease as a companion. It demands a rough and thorny path.Collection: Ease
A man never speaks of himself without losing something. What he says in his disfavor is always beleived, but when he commends himself, he arouses mistrust.Collection: Men
I never met a man who thought his thinking was faulty.Collection: Thinking
The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.Collection: Book
No noble thing can be done without risks.Collection: Risk
It was truly very good reason that we should be beholden to God only, and to the favour of his grace, for the truth of so noble a belief, since from his sole bounty we receive the fruit of immortality, which consists in the enjoyment of eternal beatitude.... The more we give and confess to owe and render to God, we do it with the greater Christianity.Collection: Giving
There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.Collection: Men
Of all human and ancient opinions concerning religion, that seems to me the most likely and most excusable, that acknowledged God as an incomprehensible power, the original and preserver of all things, all goodness, all perfection, receiving and taking in good part the honour and reverence that man paid him, under what method, name, or ceremonies soever.Collection: Men
The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles.Collection: Light
Intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not.Collection: Men
To understand via the heart is not to understand.Collection: Heart
The knowledge of courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study. It is like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and an inclination to love one another at the first sight.Collection: Sight
Wine is the benevolent god, who gives back gaiety to men and restores youth to the old.Collection: Wine
A man should keep for himself a little back shop, all his own, quite unadulterated, in which he establishes his true freedom and chief place of seclusion and solitude.Collection: Men
My library is my kingdom, and here I try to make my rule absolute-shutting off this single nook from wife, daughter and society. Elsewhere I have only a verbal authority, and vague. Unhappy is the man, in my opinion, who has no spot at home where he can be at home to himself-to court himself and hide away.Collection: Daughter
To know much is often the cause of doubting more.Collection: Doubt
A man may be humble through vainglory.Collection: Humble
In truth, knowledge is a great and very useful quality; those who despise it give evidence enough of their stupidity. Yet I do not set its value at that extreme measure that some attribute to it.Collection: Giving
A father is very miserable who has no other hold on his children's affection than the need they have of his assistance, if that can be called affection.Collection: Children
Whatever is enforced by command is more imputed to him who exacts than to him who performs.Collection: Command
A foreign war is a lot milder than a civil war.Collection: War
If your doctor does not think it good for you to sleep, to drink wine, or to eat of a particular dish, do not worry; I will find you another who will not agree with him.Collection: Food