Michel de Montaigne

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

"As to fidelity, there is no animal in the world so treacherous as man. Our histories have recorded the violent pursuits that dogs have made after the murderers of their masters."

"Great abuses in the world are begotten, or, to speak more boldly, all the abuses of the world are begotten, by our being taught to be afraid of professing our ignorance, and that we are bound to accept all things we are not able to refute: we speak of all things by precepts and decisions. The style at Rome was that even that which a witness deposed to having seen with his own eyes, and what a judge determined with his most certain knowledge, was couched in this form of speaking: “it seems to me.” They make me hate things that are likely, when they would impose them upon me as infallible."

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

"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?"

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

"There are some defeats more triumphant than victories."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Les rois et les philosophes fientent, et les dames aussi."

"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"

"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 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."

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

"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."

"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."

"Mon métier et mon art, c'est vivre."

"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."

"Virtue refuses facility for her companion ... the easy, gentle, and sloping path that guides the footsteps of a good natural disposition is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road."

"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."

"Que sais-je?"

"Quand je me joue à ma chatte, qui sait si elle passe son temps de moi, plus que je ne fais d'elle."

"All that is under heaven, says the sage, runs one law and one fortune."

"Non pudeat dicere, quod non pudet sentire: "Let no man be ashamed to speak what he is not ashamed to think.""