Michel de Montaigne

The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to…

— Michel de Montaigne

I don't break the law* made for crooks, when I take away my own property - thus I am not obliged to…

— Michel de Montaigne

“The pettiest and slightest nuisances are the most acute; and as small letters hurt and tire the eyes most, so do trifling…

— Michel de Montaigne

The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly.

— Michel de Montaigne

“The customs and practices of life in society sweep us along.”

— Michel de Montaigne

After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to the spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the slaughter…

— Michel de Montaigne

“All is a-swarm with commentaries: of authors there is a dearth.”

— Michel de Montaigne

Opinion is a powerful party, bold, and without measure.

— Michel de Montaigne

The beauty of stature is the only beauty of men.

— Michel de Montaigne

Custom is a violent and treacherous school mistress. She, by little and lithe, slyly and unperceived, slips in the foot of her…

— Michel de Montaigne

Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie.

— Michel de Montaigne

But as Nature is the best guide, teaching must be the development of natural inclinations, for which purpose the teacher must watch…

— Michel de Montaigne

Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.

— Michel de Montaigne

Age imprints more wrinkles a in the mind, than it does in the face, and souls are never, or very rarely seen,…

— Michel de Montaigne

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

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

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

To behave rightly, we ourselves should never lay a hand on our servants as long as our anger lasts. Things will seem…

— Michel de Montaigne

Pride dwells in the thought; the tongue can have but a very little share in it.

— Michel de Montaigne

Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made…

— Michel de Montaigne

It makes me hate accepting things that are probable when they are held up before me as infallibly true. I prefer these…

— Michel de Montaigne

Difficulty is a coin the learned make use of like jugglers, to conceal the inanity of their art.

— Michel de Montaigne

Laws gain their authority from actual possession and custom: it is perilous to go back to their origins; laws, like our rivers,…

— Michel de Montaigne

I want death to find me planting my cabbage.

— Michel De Montaigne

Aesop, that great man, saw his master making water as he walked. "What!" he said, "Must we void ourselves as we run?"…

— Michel de Montaigne