Michel De Montaigne Quotes

As for dying we can only assay that once, we are all apprentices when it comes to that

~ 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

If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.

~ Michel De Montaigne

We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.

~ Michel De Montaigne

From books all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honourable pastime: or if I do study, I seek only that branch of learning which deals with knowing myself and which teaches me how to live and die well...

~ Michel De Montaigne

We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.

~ Michel De Montaigne

Between ourselves, there are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct.

~ Michel De Montaigne

Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener.

~ Michel De Montaigne

Writing does not cause misery, it is born of misery.

~ Michel De Montaigne

Tis no wonder, says one of the ancients, that chance has so great a dominion over us, since it is by chance we live.

~ Michel De Montaigne

I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.

~ Michel De Montaigne

He who fears he shall suffer already suffers what he fears.

~ Michel De Montaigne

Obstinacy and heat in sticking to one's opinions is the surest proof of stupidity. Is there anything so cocksure so immovable so disdainful so contemplative so solemn and serious as an ass?

~ Michel De Montaigne

One should be ever booted and spurred and ready to depart.

~ Michel De Montaigne

We undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits their sickness and their health.

~ Michel De Montaigne

There are defeats more triumphant than victories.

~ Michel De Montaigne

All the fame I look for in life is to have lived it quietly.

~ Michel De Montaigne

If you press me to say why I loved him I can say no more than it was because he was he and I was 1.

~ Michel De Montaigne

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.

~ Michel De Montaigne

He who does not live in some degree for others hardly lives for himself.

~ Michel De Montaigne

Once conform once do what others do because they do it and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.

~ Michel De Montaigne

Whatever is enforced by command is more imputed to him who exacts than to him who performs.

~ Michel De Montaigne

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

~ Michel De Montaigne

No doctor takes pleasure in the health even of his friends.

~ Michel De Montaigne

No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.

~ Michel De Montaigne

Desire and hope will push us on toward the future.

~ Michel De Montaigne

The value of life lies not in the length of days but in the use we make of them a man may live long yet live very little.

~ Michel De Montaigne

There is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is managed by order method and discipline.

~ Michel De Montaigne

There is no greater enemy to those who would please than expectation.

~ Michel De Montaigne

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.

~ Michel De Montaigne

I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself and not by borrowing.

~ Michel De Montaigne

Of all our infirmities the most savage is to despise our being.

~ Michel De Montaigne

Not being able to govern events I govern myself.

~ Michel De Montaigne

The Ancient Mariner said to Neptune during a great storm O God you will save me if you wish but I am going to go on holding my tiller straight.

~ Michel De Montaigne

The word is half his that speaks and half his that hears it.

~ Michel De Montaigne

I walk firmer and more secure up hill than down.

~ Michel De Montaigne

I quote others in order to better express my own self.

~ Michel De Montaigne

Difficulty is a coin which the learned conjure with so as not to reveal the vanity of their studies and which human stupidity is keen to accept in payment

~ Michel De Montaigne

Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.

~ Michel De Montaigne

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

~ Michel De Montaigne