Michel de Montaigne

“How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.”

“It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. A spirited mind never stops within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength.”

“Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nur...”

“One may be humble out of pride.”

“Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.”

“I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears...”

“Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.”

“A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them.”

“The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.”

“Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.”

“In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum.”

“An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.”

“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.”

“The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.”

“Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.”

“The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.”

“Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.”

“I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.”

“Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.”

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