Quotes from Michel de Montaigne

Vainglory and curiosity are the twin scourges of our souls. The former makes us stick our noses into everything: the latter forbids us to leave anything unresolved or undecided.

Man is indeed an object miraculously vain, various and wavering. It is difficult to found a judgement on him which is steady and uniform.

What is it that makes all our quarrels end in death nowadays? Whereas our fathers knew degrees of vengeance we now begin at the end and straightway talk of nothing but killing. What causes that, if not cowardice?

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

Death is inevitable: does it matter when it comes? When Socrates was told that the Thirty Tyrants had condemned him to death, he retorted, 'And nature, them!'. How absurd to anguish over our passing into freedom from all anguish.

I seek only the learning that treats of the knowledge of myself and instructs me how to die well and live well.

The danger was not that I would do wrong, but that I would do nothing

We take other men's knowledge and opinions upon trust; which is an idle and superficial learning. We must make it our own. We are in this way much like him, who having need of fire, goes to a neighbour's house to fetch it, and finding a very good one there, sits down to warm without remembering to carry any with him home.

Just as any foreigner is not fully human.]

Ezber bilmek, bilmek de?ildir; haf?zam?za emanet edilen her ?eyi saklamakt?r.

Bir ?ey yapmad?m ne demek? Ya?ad?n?z ya! Bu sizin yaln?z ba?l?ca i?iniz de?il, en parlak, en ?erefli i?inizdir.

Atheism being a proposition as unnatural as monstrous, difficult also and hard to establish in the human understanding, how arrogant soever, there are men enough seen, out of vanity and pride, to be the authors of extraordinary and reforming opinions, and outwardly to affect the profession of them; who, if they are such fools, have, nevertheless, not the power to plant them in their own conscience.

To hear men talk of metonomies, metaphors, and allegories, and other grammar words, would not one think they signified some rare and exotic form of speaking? And yet they are phrases that come near to the babble of my chambermaid. And

I have my own laws and my own court to judge me, and I refer to these rather than elsewhere.

Let us grant to political government to endure them with patience, however unworthy; to conceal their vices; and to assist them with our recommendation in their indifferent actions, whilst their authority stands in need of our support.

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

Most of Aesop's fables have many different levels and meanings. There are those who make myths of them by choosing some feature that fits in well with the fable. But for most of the fables this is only the first and most superficial aspect. There are others that are more vital, more essential and profound, that they have not been able to reach.

That father may truly be said miserable that holdeth the affection of his children tied unto him by no other means than by the need they have of his help or want of his assistance

of countering it if that had been the only factor, since all non-rational inborn tendencies are a kind of disease which ought to be fought against.

Profiting little by good examples, I make use of those that are ill, which are everywhere to be found: I endeavor to render myself as agreeable as I see others offensive; as constant as I see others fickle; as affable as I see others rough; as good as I see others evil: but I propose to myself impracticable measures.

L'utilité du vivre n'est pas en l'espace: elle est en l'usage.

Heureuse la mort qui oste le loisir aux apprests de tel equipage.

Chacun appelle barbarie ce qui n'est pas de son usage.

If I converse with a strong mind and a rough disputant, he presses upon my flanks, and pricks me right and left; his imaginations stir up mine, jealousy, glory, and contention, stimulate and raise me up to something above myself; and acquiescence is a quality altogether tedious in discourse.