Quotes from Michel de Montaigne

Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest.

There is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is managed by order, method, and discipline.

A good marriage ... is a sweet association in life: full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of useful and solid services and mutual obligations.

The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.

Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it.

I see several animals that live so entire and perfect a life, some without sight, others without hearing: who knows whether to us also one, two, or three, or many other senses, may not be wanting?

Who is it that does not voluntarily exchange his health, his repose, and his very life for reputation and glory? The most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes current among us.

It is indeed the boundary of life, beyond which we are not to pass; which the law of nature has pitched for a limit not to be exceeded.

The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.

Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.

I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man's estate.

I would rather be old for a shorter time than be old before my time.

People of our time are so formed for agitation and ostentation that goodness, moderation, equability, constancy, and such quiet and obscure qualities are no longer felt.

We need but little learning to live happily.

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

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

It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my reason.

'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.

We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany.

Time steals away without any inconvenience.

And if nobody reads me, shall I have wasted my time, when I have beguiled so many idle hours with such pleasant and profitable reflections?

Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant.

The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little.

Nature should have been pleased to have made this age miserable, without making it also ridiculous.