In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is in conversation. I find it sweeter than any other… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
The knowledge of courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study. It is like grace and beauty, that which begets liking… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing. — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
We perceive no charms that are not sharpened, puffed out, and inflated by artifice. Those which glide along naturally and simply easily… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
I see several animals that live so entire and perfect a life, some without sight, others without hearing: who knows whether to… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
“Human understanding is marvellously enlightened by daily conversation with men, for we are, otherwise, compressed and heaped up in ourselves, and have… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
Courtesy, like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and inclination to love one another at the first sight, and in the… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
It takes so much to be a king that he exists only as such. That extraneous glare that surrounds him hides him… — Michel de Montaigne Copy Share Image
We have more poets than judges and interpreters of poetry. It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a… — 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
