Michel de Montaigne

To smell, though well, is to stink.

— Michel de Montaigne

God defend me from myself.

— Michel de Montaigne

My trade and art is to live.

— Michel de Montaigne

I want death to find me planting my cabbages.

— Michel de Montaigne

I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future.

— Michel de Montaigne

An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.

— Michel de Montaigne

Few men have been admired of their familiars.

— Michel de Montaigne

All the opinions in the world point out that pleasure is our aim.

— Michel de Montaigne

No noble thing can be done without risks.

— Michel de Montaigne

One should always have one's boots on and be ready to leave.

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

In plain Truth, it is no Want, but rather Abundance that creates Avarice.

— Michel de Montaigne

If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.

— Michel de Montaigne

As far as fidelity is concerned, there is no animal in the world as treacherous as man.

— Michel de Montaigne

I may indeed very well happen to contradict myself; but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict.

— Michel de Montaigne

“Light griefs can speak: deep sorrows are dumb."      —Seneca, Hippolytus, act ii. scene 3.] A”

— Michel de Montaigne

We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what…

— Michel de Montaigne

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

— Michel de Montaigne

If love and ambition should be in equal balance, and come to jostle with equal force, I make no doubt but that…

— Michel de Montaigne

The beginnings of all things are weak and tender. We must therefore be clear-sighted in the beginnings, for, as in their budding…

— Michel de Montaigne

The receipts of cookery are swelled to a volume, but a good stomach excels them all; to which nothing contributes more than…

— Michel de Montaigne

“Handling and use by able minds give value to a language, not so much by innovating as by filling it out with…

— Michel de Montaigne

It is for little souls, that truckle under the weight of affairs, not to know how clearly to disengage themselves, and not…

— Michel de Montaigne

Judgement holds in me a magisterial seat, at least it carefully tries to. It lets my feelings go their way, both hatred…

— Michel de Montaigne

Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their…

— Michel de Montaigne

“Let us never allow ourselves to be carried away so completely by pleasure that we fail to recall from time to time…

— Michel de Montaigne

Everyone can play the mummer's part, and represent an honest personage on the stage; but inwardly, within his own bosom, where all…

— Michel De Montaigne

The world always looks straights ahead; as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy.…

— Michel de Montaigne

“Our understanding is conducted solely by means of the word: anyone who falsifies it betrays public society. It is the only tool…

— Michel de Montaigne

Marriage has, for its share, usefulness, justice, honour, and constancy; a stale but more durable pleasure. Love is grounded on pleasure alone,…

— Michel de Montaigne

One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us and whereto our passions transport us. But those which by long habit are…

— Michel de Montaigne

Learning is not to be tacked to the mind, but we must fuse and blend them together, not merely giving the mind…

— Michel de Montaigne

.. since it was true that study, even when done properly, can only teach us what wisdom, right conduct and determination consist…

— Michel de Montaigne

“The Emperor Conrad III had besieged Guelph, Duke of Bavaria; no matter how base and cowardly were the satisfactions offered him, the…

— Michel de Montaigne

“Let the tutor not merely require a verbal account of what the boy has been taught but the meaning and the substance…

— Michel de Montaigne

I have never known a greater miracle, or monster, than myself.

— Michel de Montaigne

“I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself.”

— Michel de Montaigne

A man must become wise at his own expense.

— Michel de Montaigne

Custom is a second nature, and no less powerful.

— Michel de Montaigne

How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!

— Michel de Montaigne