So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw… — 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
The pleasure we hold in esteem for the course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our time dedicated… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
When I am attached by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
“And this puts me in mind of that rich gentleman of Rome, who had been solicitous, with great expense, to procure men… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Men do not know the natural infirmity of their mind: it does nothing but ferret and quest, and keeps incessantly whirling around,… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
A wellborn mind that is practiced in dealing with people makes itself thoroughly agreeable by itself. Art is nothing else but thelist… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
I enter into discussion and argument with great freedom and ease, inasmuch as opinion finds me in a bad soil to penetrate… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
If these Essays were worthy of being judged, it might fall out, in my opinion, that they would not find much favour,… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
“No spirited mind remains within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength; it has impulses beyond its power of… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
No spiritual mind remains within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its own strength. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Who so hath his mind on taking, hath it no more on what he taketh. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Now, since our condition accommodates things to itself, and transforms them according to itself, we no longer know things in their reality;… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. A spirited mind never stops within… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Meditation is a rich and powerful method of study for anyone who knows how to examine his mind. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
It is not a mind, it is not a body that we educate, but it is a man, and we must not… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Is it reasonable that even the arts should take advantage of and profit by our natural stupidity and feebleness of mind? — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
We must not attach knowledge to the mind; we have to incorporate it there. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind,… — 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
