Michel de Montaigne

"'Tis so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so."

"Traveling through the world produces a marvelous clarity in the judgment of men. We are all of us confined and enclosed within ourselves, and see no farther than the end of our nose. This great world is a mirror where we must see ourselves in order to know ourselves. There are so many different tempers, so many different points of view, judgments, opinions, laws and customs to teach us to judge wisely on our own, and to teach our judgment to recognize its imperfection and natural weakness."

"Il faut bonne mémoire après qu'on a menti ."

"For my own part, I cannot without grief see so much as an innocent beast pursued and killed that has no defence, and from which we have received no offence at all."

"There are some defeats more triumphant than victories."

"Si on me presse de dire pourquoi je l'aimais, je sens que cela ne se peut exprimer qu'en répondant: parce que c'était lui; parce que c'était moi."

"I am angry at the custom of forbidding children to call their father by the name of father, and to enjoin them another, as more full of respect and reverence, as if nature had not sufficiently provided for our authority. We call Almighty God Father, and disdain to have our children call us so. I have reformed this error in my family.—[As did Henry IV of France]—And 'tis also folly and injustice to deprive children, when grown up, of familiarity with their father, and to carry a scornful and austere countenance toward them, thinking by that to keep them in awe and obedience; for it is a very idle farce that, instead of producing the effect designed, renders fathers distasteful, and, which is worse, ridiculous to their own children."

"He who does not give himself leisure to be thirsty cannot take pleasure in drinking."

"There is nothing so easy, so sweet, and so favourable, as the divine law: it calls and invites us to her, guilty and abominable as we are; extends her arms and receives us into her bosom, foul and polluted as we at present are, and are for the future to be. But then, in return, we are to look upon her with a respectful eye; we are to receive this pardon with all gratitude and submission, and for that instant at least, wherein we address ourselves to her, to have the soul sensible of the ills we have committed, and at enmity with those passions that seduced us to offend her."

"Mon métier et mon art, c'est vivre."

"Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head."

"Je ne dis les autres, sinon pour d'autant plus me dire."

"Accustom him to every thing, that he may not be a Sir Paris, a carpet-knight, but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man."

"We were halves throughout, and to that degree that, methinks, by outliving him I defraud him of his part."

"... il n'est rien creu si fermement que ce qu'on sçait le moins, ..."

"He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live."

"L'homme d'entendement n'a rien perdu, s'il a soi-même."

"Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at the expense of life."

"Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness."

"A true prayer and religious reconciling of ourselves to Almighty God cannot enter into an impure soul, subject at the very time to the dominion of Satan. He who calls God to his assistance whilst in a course of vice, does as if a cut-purse should call a magistrate to help him, or like those who introduce the name of God to the attestation of a lie."

"There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others."

"C'est une épineuse entreprise, et plus qu'il ne semble, de suivre une allure si vagabonde que celle de nôtre esprit; de pénétrer les profondeurs opaques de ses replis internes; de choisir et arrêter tant de menus de ses agitations."

"He who would teach men to die would teach them to live."

"Whatever can be done another day can be done today."

"How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among their friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out."

"Un peu de chaque chose, et rien du tout, a la française."

"Every rich man is avaricious, in my opinion."

"All the opinions of the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end."

"Je veux que la mort me trouve plantant mes choux."

"Combien de choses nous servoyent hier d’articles de foy, qui nous sont fables aujourd’huy?"

"All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate."

"Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to have a sufficient length of life. Is it possible you can imagine never to arrive at the place towards which you are continually going? and yet there is no journey but hath its end. And, if company will make it more pleasant or more easy to you, does not all the world go the self-same way?"

"Things are not so painful and difficult of themselves, but our weakness or cowardice makes them so."

"To call out for the hand of the enemy is a rather extreme measure, yet a better one, I think, than to remain in continual fever over an accident that has no remedy. But since all the precautions that a man can take are full of uneasiness and uncertainty, it is better to prepare with fine assurance for the worst that can happen, and derive some consolation from the fact that we are not sure that it will happen."

"I live from day to day, and content myself with having enough to meet my present and ordinary needs; for the extraordinary, all the provision in the world could not suffice."

"Live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead."

"The day of your birth is one day’s advance towards the grave."

"La plus grande chose du monde, c'est de savoir être à soi."

"It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying."

"All of the days go toward death and the last one arrives there."

"C'est ce de quoi j'ai le plus de peur que la peur."

"God's justice and His power are inseparable; 'tis in vain we invoke His power in an unjust cause. We are to have our souls pure and clean, at that moment at least wherein we pray to Him, and purified from all vicious passions; otherwise we ourselves present Him the rods wherewith to chastise us; instead of repairing anything we have done amiss, we double the wickedness and the offence when we offer to Him, to whom we are to sue for pardon, an affection full of irreverence and hatred. Which makes me not very apt to applaud those whom I observe to be so frequent on their knees, if the actions nearest to the prayer do not give me some evidence of amendment and reformation"

"We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, which is the cause that what we believe we do not believe, and cannot disengage ourselves from what we condemn."

"We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there."

"The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom."

"It is the part of cowardice, not of courage, to go and crouch in a hole under a massive tomb, to avoid the blows of fortune."

"A strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment."

"Je veux qu'on me voit en ma façon simple, naturelle, et ordinaire, sans étude et artifice; car c'est moi que je peins...Je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre."

"Certes, c'est un subject merveilleusement vain, divers, et ondoyant, que l'homme. Il est malaisé d'y fonder jugement constant et uniforme."

"A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself."