Quotes from Michel de Montaigne

Nothing doth sooner breed a distaste or satiety than plenty.

Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry.

If I can, I shall keep my death from saying anything that my life has not already said. -from That intention is judge of our actions

Plato forbids children wine till eighteen years of age, and to get drunk till forty; but, after forty, gives them leave to please themselves, and to mix a little liberally in their feasts the influence of Dionysos, that good deity who restores to younger men their gaiety and to old men their youth...fit to inspire old men with mettle to divert themselves in dancing and music; things of great use, and that they dare not attempt when sober.

As for dying we can only assay that once; we are all apprentices when it comes to that

Le monde n'est qu'une balançoire perpétuelle. Toutes choses y balancent sans cesse.

Certainly man is a remarkably vain, variable, and elusive subject.10 It is hard to base any constant, uniform judgment upon him.

Why remember we not, what, and how many contradictions we find and feel even in our own judgment? How many things served us but yesterday as articles of faith, which to-day we deem but fables? Glory and curiosity are the scourges of our souls. The latter induceth us to have an oar in every ship, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved or undecided.

oddness or novelty (qualities which usually give value to anything)

The Emperor Conrad III had besieged Guelph, Duke of Bavaria; no matter how base and cowardly were the satisfactions offered him, the most generous condition he would vouchsafe was to allow the noblewomen who had been besieged with the Duke to come out honourably on foot, together with whatever they could carry on their persons. They, with greatness of heart, decided to carry out on their shoulders their husbands, their children and the Duke himself.

My trifles escape me with as little gravity as they deserve. Good luck to them for that. I would part with them at once, however low their price. I do not buy and sell them for more than they weigh. I speak to my writing-paper exactly as I do to the first man I meet.

If each man, on hearing a wise maxim, immediately looked to see how it properly applied to him, he would find that it was not so much a pithy saying as a whiplash applied to the habitual stupidity of his faculty of judgement.

Tis no wonder, says one of the ancients, that chance has so great a dominion over us, since it is by chance we live.

Open talk opens the way to further talk, as wine does or love.

Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.

We are all lumps, and of so various and inform a contexture, that every piece plays, every moment, its own game, and there is as much difference betwixt us and ourselves as betwixt us and others.

Meditar previamente sobre a morte é meditar previamente sobre a liberdade.Quem aprendeu a morrer desaprendeu a se subjugar. Não há nenhum mal na vida para aquele que bem compreendeu que a privação da vida não é um mal. Saber morrer liberta-nos de toda sujeição e imposição.

The way of truth is one and artless: the way of private gain and success in such affairs as we are entrusted with is double, uneven and fortuitous. I

when Dandamys the Wise heard accounts of the lives of Socrates, Pythagoras and Diogenes, he said that they were in every way great personalities, except for their being too subject to venerating the Law: for, to support Law with its authority, true virtue must doff much of its original vigour; and many vicious deeds are done not merely with the Law's permission but at its instigation:13

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.

The Stoics forbid this emotion to their sages as being base and cowardly.

It is as though our very touch bore infection: things which in themselves are good and beautiful are corrupted by our handling of them.

La presunción es nuestra enfermedad natural y primera. La más frágil y discutible de las criaturas es el hombre, y a la vez la más orgullosa

Illam meae si partem animae tulit Maturior vis, quid moror altera? Nec carus aeque, nec superstes Integer. Ille dies ultramque Ducet ruinam. [Wenn meinen besten Teil der Seele die Parzen vor der Zeit abrissen, was zaudert der andere, der mir nicht lieber, nicht überlebender ist! Ein Tag stürzt uns beide ins Grab.]