Michel de Montaigne
How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!Collection: Men
I, who am king of the matter I treat, and who owe an accounting for it to no one, do not for all that believe myself in all I write. I often hazard sallies of my mind which I mistrust.Collection: Trust
If these Essays were worthy of being judged, it might fall out, in my opinion, that they would not find much favour, either with common and vulgar minds, or with uncommon and eminent ones: the former would not find enough in them, the latter would find too much; they might manage to live somewhere in the middle region.Collection: Fall
Whatever I may be, I want to be elsewhere than on paper. My art and my industry have been employed in making myself good for something; my studies, in teaching me to do, not to write. I have put all my efforts into forming my life. That is my trade and my work.Collection: Education
Others form man; I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed, whom I should really make very different from whathe is if I had to fashion him over again. But now it is done.Collection: Fashion
Authors communicate with the people by some special extrinsic mark; I am the first to do so by my entire being, as Michel de Montaigne.Collection: Communication
My opinion is that we must lend ourselves to others and give ourselves only to ourselves. If my will happened to be prone to mortgage and attach itself, I would not last: I am too tender, both by nature and by practice.Collection: Self
What we are told of the inhabitants of Brazil, that they never die but of old age, is attributed to the tranquility and serenity of their climate; I rather attribute it to the tranquility and serenity of their souls, which are free from all passion, thought, or any absorbing and unpleasant labors. Those people spend their lives in an admirable simplicity and ignorance, without letters, without law, without king, without any manner of religion.Collection: Kings
We imagine much more appropriately an artisan on his toilet seat or on his wife than a great president, venerable by his demeanorand his ability. It seems to us that they do not stoop from their lofty thrones even to live.Collection: Imagination
I am one of those who hold that poetry is never so blithe as in a wanton and irregular subject.Collection: Poetry
The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle and without eccentricity.Collection: Beautiful
Each person calls barbarism whatever is not his or her own practice.... We may call Cannibals barbarians, in respect to the rulesof reason, but not in respect to ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarity.Collection: Practice
Tis well for old age that it is always accompanied with want of perception, ignorance, and a facility of being deceived. For should we see how we are used and would not acquiesce, what would become of us?Collection: Ignorance
The vulgar and common esteem is seldom happy in hitting right; and I am much mistaken if, amongst the writings of my time, the worst are not those which have most gained the popular applause.Collection: Writing
Example is a bright looking-glass, universal and for all shapes to look into.Collection: Glasses
How many worthy men have we known to survive their own reputation, who have seen and suffered the honor and glory most justly acquired in their youth, extinguished in their own presence?Collection: Men
Fortune does us neither good nor hurt; she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases; being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition.Collection: Hurt
I would rather be an expert on me than on CiceroCollection: Experts
He that is a friend to himself, know; he is a friend to all.Collection: Knows
The most regular and most perfect soul in the world has but too much to do to keep itself upright from being overthrown by its own weakness.Collection: Perfect
We find our energies are actually cramped when we are overanxious to succeed.Collection: Balance
Socrates thought and so do I that the wisest theory about the gods is no theory at all.Collection: God
The beauty of stature is the only beauty of men.Collection: Beauty
Excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgments.Collection: Memories
In true friendship, in which I am expert, I give myself to my friend more than I draw him to me. I not only like doing him good better than having him do me good, but also would rather have him do good to himself than to me; he does me most good when he does himself good.Collection: Love
Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.Collection: Happiness
It's not victory if it doesn't end the war.Collection: War
Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.Collection: Inspirational
I want death to find me planting my cabbages.Collection: Death
There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.Collection: Life
Every day I hear stupid people say things that are not stupid.Collection: Stupid
Women are more susceptible to pain than to pleasure.Collection: Pain
Truth and reason are common to everyone, and are no more his who spake them first than his who speaks them after.Collection: Truth
If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.Collection: Reflection
Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.Collection: Genius
The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.Collection: Death
Difficulty is a coin the learned make use of like jugglers, to conceal the inanity of their art.Collection: Art
One should always have one's boots on and be ready to leave.Collection: Death
The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.Collection: Demand
Live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead.Collection: Time
Pleasure itself is painful at the bottom.Collection: Painful
Vexations may be petty, but they are vexations still.Collection: May
Satiety comes of too frequent repetition and he who will not give himself leisure to be thirsty can never find the true pleasure of drinkingCollection: Drinking
Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in show, like the statue of a public place.Collection: Ambition
Who feareth to suffer suffereth already, because he feareth.Collection: Fear
No profession or occupation is more pleasing than the military; a profession or exercise both noble in execution (for the strongest, most generous and proudest of all virtues is true valor) and noble in its cause. No utility either more just or universal than the protection of the repose or defense of the greatness of one's country. The company and daily conversation of so many noble, young and active men cannot but be well-pleasing to you.Collection: Country
Friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules and sways with an absolute sovereignty, can admit of no rival.Collection: Friendship
An orator of past times declared that his calling was to make small things appear to be grand.Collection: Past
I set forth notions that are human and my own, simply as human notions considered in themselves, not as determined and decreed by heavenly ordinance.Collection: Determined