Quotes from Michel de Montaigne

A liar would be brave toward God, while he is a coward toward men; for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man.

Man will rise, if God by exception lends him a hand; he will rise by abandoning and renouncing his own means, and letting himselfbe raised and uplifted by purely celestial means.

Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head.

He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.

And I loathe people who find it harder to put up with a gown askew than with a soul askew and who judge a man by his bow, his bearing and his boots.

Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen.

..a man may live long, yet live very little. Satisfaction in life depends not on the number of your years, but on your will.

The first distinction among men, and the first consideration that gave one precedence over another, was doubtless the advantage of beauty.

There is a plague on Man, the opinion that he knows something.

How many worthy men have we known to survive their own reputation, who have seen and suffered the honor and glory most justly acquired in their youth, extinguished in their own presence?

Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, prudently, and fully is a talent that few men have.

We are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak.

When we see a man with bad shoes, we say it is no wonder, if he is a shoemaker.

An ancient father says that a dog we know is better company than a man whose language we do not understand.

The general order of things that takes care of fleas and moles also takes care of men, if they will have the same patience that fleas and moles have, to leave it to itself.

Not because Socrates said so,... I look upon all men as my compatriots.

There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them.

How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!

The great and glorious masterpiece of men is to live to the point. All other things-to reign, to hoard, to build-are, at most, but inconsiderable props and appendages.

What a man hates, he takes seriously.

Man (in good earnest) is a marvellous vain, fickle, and unstable subject, and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment.

Travelling through the world produces a marvellous clarity in the judgment of men. We are all of us confined and enclosed within ourselves, and see no farther than the end of our nose.

A man never speaks of himself without losing something. What he says in his disfavor is always beleived, but when he commends himself, he arouses mistrust.

Few men have been admired of their familiars.