Michel de Montaigne Quotes

If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.

To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it.

Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.

I would rather be an authority on myself than on Cicero.

There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened.

I find I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardor of dispute, I make myself submit to my adversary’s force of reason, than I am pleased with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness.

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

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

"To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere."

"To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave."

I speak the truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little more as I grow older.

Off I go, rummaging about in books for sayings which please me.

Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do.

My art and profession is to live.

To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.

Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.