It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
No-one is exempt from speaking nonsense – the only misfortune is to do it solemnly. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Socrates thought and so do I that the wisest theory about the gods is no theory at all. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
A man should not so much respect what he eats, as with whom he eats. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Tis the taste of effeminacy that disrelishes ordinary and accustomed things. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
The secret counsels of princes are a troublesome burden to such as have only to execute them. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Princes give me sufficiently if they take nothing from me, and do me much good if they do me no hurt; it… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Is there a polity better ordered, the offices better distributed, and more inviolably observed and maintained, than that of bees? — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
A learned man is not learned in all things; but a sufficient man is sufficient throughout, even to ignorance itself. — 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
A man must always study, but he must not always go to school: what a contemptible thing is an old abecedarian! — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Nobody is exempt from saying stupid things, the harm is to do it presumptuously. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
We find our energies are actually cramped when we are overanxious to succeed. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
When I quote others I do so in order to express my own ideas more clearly. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
It is not the want, but rather abundance that creates avarice. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
The great and glorious masterpiece of humanity is to know how to live with a purpose. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
We should rather examine, who is better learned, than who is more learned. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making them more great. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
He who does not live in some degree for others, hardly lives for himself. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
A little of everything and nothing thoroughly, after the French fashion. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Our wisdom and deliberation for the most part follow the lead of chance. — 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
