Top 15 Michel de Montaigne Quotes

French author, philosopher, and statesman (1533–1592)

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Michel de Montaigne (Michel Eyquem, lord of the manor of Montaigne, Dordogne) (28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592) was an influential French Renaissance writer, generally considered to be the inventor of the personal essay.

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Alternative Names: Michel Eyquem de Montaigne • Miquèu Eiquèm de Montanha • Miqueu Eiquem de Montanha

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The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.

On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.

I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.

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

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

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

Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.

Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.