Michel de Montaigne
I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future.Collection: Future
We commend a horse for his strength, and sureness of foot, and not for his rich caparisons; a greyhound for his share of heels, not for his fine collar; a hawk for her wing, not for her jesses and bells. Why, in like manner, do we not value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year, and all these are about him, but not in him.Collection: Beautiful
Kings and philosophers defecate, and so do ladies.Collection: Kings
Truly it is reasonable to make a great distinction between the faults that come from our weakness and those that come from our wickedness.Collection: Evil
Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men.Collection: God
When we have got it, we want something else.Collection: Want Something
To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.Collection: Book
Whenever a new finding is reported to the world people say - It is probably not true. Later on, when the reliability of a new finding has been fully confirmed, people say - OK, it may be true but it has no real significance. At last, when even the significance of the finding is obvious to everybody, people say - Well, it might have some significance, but the idea is not new.Collection: Real
And if nobody reads me, shall I have wasted my time, when I have beguiled so many idle hours with such pleasant and profitable reflections?Collection: Book
We should rather examine, who is better learned, than who is more learned.Collection: Should
The plague of man is the opinion of knowledge. That is why ignorance is so recommended by our religion as a quality suitable to belief and obedience.Collection: Ignorance
It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness.Collection: Possession
He who does not live in some degree for others, hardly lives for himself.Collection: Degrees
Things seem greater by imagination than they are in effect.Collection: Imagination
God might grant us riches, honours, life, and even health, to our own hurt; for every thing that is pleasing to us is not always good for us. If he sends us death, or an increase of sickness, instead of a cure, Vvrga tua et baculus, tuus ipsa me consolata sunt. "Thy rod and thy staff have comforted me," he does it by the rule of his providence, which better and more certainly discerns what is proper for us than we can do; and we ought to take it in good part, as coming from a wise and most friendly hand.Collection: Wise
The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.Collection: Exercise
Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.Collection: Light
There is nothing of evil in life for him who rightly comprehends that death is no evil; to know how to die delivers us from all subjection and constraint.Collection: Death
To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere." "To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.Collection: Men
Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget.Collection: Mind
There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.Collection: Wish
Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.Collection: Patience
It is a stupid presumption to go about despising and condemning as false anything that seems to us improbable; this is a common fault in those who think they have more intelligence than the crowd.Collection: Stupid
Like the watermen who advance forward while they look backward.Collection: Looks
No spiritual mind remains within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its own strength.Collection: Spiritual
The religion of my doctor or my lawyer cannot matter. That consideration has nothing in common with the functions of the friendship they owe me.Collection: Doctors
I determine nothing; I do not comprehend things; I suspend judgment; I examine.Collection: Judgment
We wake sleeping, and sleep waking. I do not see so clearly in my sleep; but as to my being awake, I never found it clear enough and free from clouds.Collection: Sleep
There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience…These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant; and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us; it is the only payment that can never fail. “On RepentanceCollection: Pride
Natural inclinations are assisted and reinforced by education, but they are hardly ever altered or overcome.Collection: Overcoming
Lawyers and physicians are an ill provision for any country.Collection: Country
To make judgements about great and lofty things, a soul of the same stature is needed; otherwise we ascribe to them that vice which is our own.Collection: Judgement
Saying is one thing and doing is anotherCollection: Action
Women are not altogether in the wrong when they refuse the rules of life prescribed to the World, for men only have established them and without their consent.Collection: Men
There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)Collection: Desire