Quotes from Michel de Montaigne

There is hardly less torment in running a family than in running a country.

I have a mind that belongs wholly to itself, and is accustomed to go its own way. Having never until this hour had a master or governor imposed on me, I have advanced as far as I pleased, and at my own pace. This has made me slack and unfit for the service of others; it has made me useless to any but myself.

for this present child of my brain, what I give it I give unconditionally and irrevocably, just as one does to the children of one's body; such little good as I have already done it is no longer mine to dispose of; it may know plenty of things which I know no longer, and remember things about me that I have forgotten; if the need arose to turn to it for help, it would be like borrowing from a stranger. It is richer than I am, yet I am wiser than it. Few devotees of poetry would not have

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul

All passions that allow themselves to be savored and digested are only mediocre. -from Of sadness

Is it that we pretend to a reformation? Truly, no: but it may be we are more addicted to Venus than our fathers were. They are two exercises that thwart and hinder one another in their vigor. Lechery weakens our stomach on the one side; and on the other sobriety renders us more spruce and amorous for the exercise of love.

Happiness is a singular incentive to mediocrity.

Todos los días van hacia la muerte, el último la alcanza.

is only certain that there is nothing certain, and that nothing is more miserable or more proud than man.Nat. Hist., ii. 7.]

The natural heat, say the good-fellows, first seats itself in the feet: that concerns infancy; thence it mounts into the middle region, where it makes a long abode and produces, in my opinion, the sole true pleasures of human life; all other pleasures in comparison sleep; towards the end, like a vapor that still mounts upward, it arrives at the throat, where it makes its final residence, and concludes the progress.

We are never at home, we are always beyond. Fear, desire, hope, project us toward the future and steal from us the consideration of what is, to busy us with what will be, even when we shall no longer be. -from Our feelings reach out beyond us

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

Would I fortify myself against the fear of death, it must be at the expense of Seneca: would I extract consolation for myself or my friend, I must borrow it from Cicero.  I might have found it in myself, had I been trained to make use of my own reason.  I do not like this relative and mendicant understanding; for though we could become learned by other men's learning, a man can never be wise but by his own wisdom.

I do not think that there is so much wretchedness in us as vanity; we are not so much wicked as daft; we are not so much full of evil as of inanity; we are not so much pitiful as despicable.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself

que a morte me encontre plantando minhas couves, mas despreocupado com ela e ainda mais com minha horta inacabada.

One may cover over secret actions, but to be silent on what all the world knows, and things which have had effects which are public and of so much consequence is an inexcusable defect.

an outstanding memory is often associated with weak judgement.

they judge my affection by my memory and turn a natural defect into a deliberate one. 'We begged him to do this,' they say, 'and he has forgotten.' 'He has forgotten his promise.' 'He has forgotten his friends.' 'He never remembered – even for my sake – to say this, to do that or not to mention something else.

graces were never yet given to any one man.A verse

I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.

El amor no es más que el deseo furioso de algo que huye de nosotros...

I feel death pinching me by the throat, or pulling me by the back.

what privilege this filthy excrement had, that we must carry about us a fine handkerchief to receive it, and, which was more, afterward to lap it carefully up and carry it all day about in our pockets, which, he said, could not but be much more nauseous and offensive, than to see it thrown away, as we did all other evacuations" – A gentleman