Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The great and glorious masterpiece of man is how to live with purpose.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbors, causeth a war to follow between Princes.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

I quote others in order to better express myself.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Have you known how to take rest? You have done more than he who hath taken empires and cities.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm, and yet will make Gods by dozens.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us, and whereto our passions transport us; but those which by long habits are rooted in a strong and powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Princes give me sufficiently if they take nothing from me, and do me much good if they do me no hurt; it is all I require of them.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

True it is that she who escapeth safe and unpolluted from out the school of freedom, giveth more confidence of herself than she who comet sound out of the school of severity and restraint.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Of all the infirmities we have, the most savage is to despise our being.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be self-sufficient.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Few men have been admired of their familiars.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

He who lives not to others, lives little to himself.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

After mature deliberation of counsel, the good Queen to establish a rule and immutable example unto all posterity, for the moderation and required modesty in a lawful marriage, ordained the number of six times a day as a lawful, necessary and competent limit.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at least in vigor and stability.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

My reason is not framed to bend or stoop: my knees are.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Even on the most exalted throne in the world we are only sitting on our own bottom.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Who feareth to suffer suffereth already, because he feareth.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

It is the part of cowardliness, and not of virtue, to seek to squat itself in some hollow lurking hole, or to hide herself under some massive tomb, thereby to shun the strokes of fortune.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection, otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Socrates thought and so do I that the wisest theory about the gods is no theory at all.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books, They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

A man should ever be ready booted to take his journey.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

I tell the truth, not as much as I would like to, but as much as I dare. I dare more and more as I grow older.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Those things that are dearest to us have cost us the most.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

The honor of the conquest is rated by the difficulty.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Virtue craves a steep and thorny path.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Of all the benefits which virtue confers on us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

From Obedience and submission comes all our virtues, and all sin is comes from self-opinion.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Wisdom hath her excesses, and no less need of moderation than folly.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

Nothing fixes a thing so intensly in the memory as the wish to forget it.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne