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.”

“There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.”

“I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.”

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.”

“The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.”

“I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.”

“For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.”

“There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.”

“It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my re...”

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

“Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.”

“There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.”

“'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.”

“Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.”

“Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.”

“The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.”

“The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.”

“Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.”

“The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.”

“I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.”