If falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be more on equal terms. For we would consider the contrary of… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
I would like to suggest that our minds are swamped by too much study and by too much matter just as plants… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
To make a crooked stick straight, we bend it the contrary way. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things,… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
We must learn to suffer what we cannot evade; our life, like the harmony of the world, is composed of contrary things,… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Ambition is, of all other, the most contrary humor to solitude; and glory and repose are so inconsistent that they cannot possibly… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
[I]n my country, when they would say a man has no sense, they say, such an one has no memory; and when… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
We are neither obstinately nor wilfully to oppose evils, nor truckle under them for want of courage, but that we are naturally… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
The laws keep up their credit, not by being just, but because they are laws; 'tis the mystic foundation of their authority; they have… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Beauty is the true prerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that our sex, though naturally requiring another sort of feature, is never… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
The height and value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise; so far from difficulty, that boys, as… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Fie on the eloquence that leaves us craving itself, not things! — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
The plainest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness: her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear… — Michel De Montaigne Copy Share Image
The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice, atheism, tyranny, avarice,… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
If people must be talking about me, I would have it to be truthfully and justly. I would willingly return from the next world… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
In true friendship, in which I am expert, I give myself to my friend more than I draw him to me. I not only… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
There are as many and innumerable degrees of wit, as there are cubits between this and heaven. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image