Michel De Montaigne Quotes

I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced.

All is a-swarm with commentaries: of authors there is a dearth.

Handling and use by able minds give value to a language, not so much by innovating as by filling it out with more vigorous and varied services, by stretching and bending it.

No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.

The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar.

Can anything be imagined so ridiculous, that this miserable and wretched creature [man], who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole?

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.

Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.

Why do people respect the package rather than the man?

Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.

There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened.

It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance.

I listen with attention to the judgment of all men;
but so far as I can remember,
I have followed none but my own.

Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.

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 Repentance

We need but little learning to live happily.

Though the ancient poet in Plutarch tells us we must not trouble the gods with our affairs because they take no heed of our angers and disputes, we can never enough decry the disorderly sallies of our minds.