Michel de Montaigne Quotes

Ease crushes us.

Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, research is the means of all learning, and ignorance is the end.

My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.

Happiness is a singular incentive to mediocrity.

A man of genius belongs to no period and no country. He speaks the language of nature, which is always everywhere the same.

She [virtue] requires a rough and stormy passage; she will have either outward difficulties to wrestle with, 11 … or internal difficulties.

It was truly very good reason that we should be beholden to God only, and to the favour of his grace, for the truth of so noble a belief, since from his sole bounty we receive the fruit of immortality, which consists in the enjoyment of eternal beatitude.... The more we give and confess to owe and render to God, we do it with the greater Christianity.

Que sçay-je? (What do I know?)

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.

If I am a man of some reading, I am a man of no retentiveness.

How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which today are fables for us?

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.

J'accuse toute violence en l'education d'une ame tendre, qu'on dresse pour l'honneur, et la liberté.

Women are not entirely wrong when they reject the moral rules proclaimed in society, since it is we men alone who have made them.

He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying.