Michel de Montaigne quotes

There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge. (Michel de Montaigne)
He who fears he will suffer, already suffers from his fear.
Michel de Montaigne
I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
Michel de Montaigne
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
Michel de Montaigne
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
Michel de Montaigne
Cowardice is the mother of cruelty.
Michel de Montaigne
He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.
Michel de Montaigne
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
Michel de Montaigne
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
Michel de Montaigne
Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.
Michel de Montaigne
If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love. (Michel de Montaigne)
Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.
Michel de Montaigne
The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
Michel de Montaigne
Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.
Michel de Montaigne
Ambition is not a vice of little people.
Michel de Montaigne
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
Michel de Montaigne
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.
Michel de Montaigne
Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.
Michel de Montaigne
The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.
Michel de Montaigne
A wise man loses nothing, if he but saves himself.
Michel de Montaigne
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know. (Michel de Montaigne)
The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.
Michel de Montaigne
'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
Michel de Montaigne
If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.
Michel de Montaigne
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
Michel de Montaigne