Quotes from Michel de Montaigne

man is the sole animal whose nudities offend his own companions, and the only one who, in his natural actions, withdraws and hides himself from his own kind

I do not think we can ever be despised as much as we deserve.

Et au plus eslevé throne du monde, si ne sommes assis, que sus notre cul

Why do you judge a man when he is all wrapped up like a parcel? He is letting us see only such attributes as do not belong to him while hiding the only ones which enable us to judge his real worth.

Rhetoric flourished in Rome when their affairs were in their worst state and when they were shattered by the storms of civil war, just as a field left untamed bears the most flourishing weeds.

Je veux que la mort me trouve plantant mes choux.

I, who boast of embracing the pleasures of life so assiduously and so particularly, find in them, when I look at them thus minutely, virtually nothing but wind. But what of it? We are all wind.

Les montagnes bougent, c'est juste qu'elles bougent lentement.

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.

One must be a little foolish if one does not want to be even more stupid.

In plain Truth, it is no Want, but rather Abundance that creates Avarice.

When we have got it, we want something else.

Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself.

The clearest sign of wisdom is continued cheerfulness.

Obstinacy and heat in sticking to one's opinions is the surest proof of stupidity. Is there anything so cocksure, so immovable, so disdainful, so contemplative, so solemn and serious as an ass?

We undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.

Riches, like glory or health, have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleased to lend them.

All the fame I look for in life is to have lived it quietly.

We are all of us richer than we think we are.

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was 1.

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

The soul that has no established aim loses itself.

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