Quotes from Michel de Montaigne

Dreams are faithful interpreters of our inclinations; but there is art required to sort and understand them.

To know how to live is my trade and my art.

If I were of the trade, I should naturalize art as much as they "artialize" nature.

Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.

The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.

The continuous work of our life is to build death.

The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.

Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.

The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things.

Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.

My business is only to keep myself in motion, whilst motion pleases me; I only walk for the walk's sake.

Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet - the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.

There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.

I moreover affirm that our wisdom itself, and wisest consultations, for the most part commit themselves to the conduct of chance.

Speech belongs half to the speaker, half to the listener. The latter must prepare to receive it according to the motion it takes.

Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.

Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.

Cowardice is the mother of cruelty.

It needs courage to be afraid.

He who falls obstinate in his courage, if he falls he fights from his knees.

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

To philosophize is nothing else than to prepare oneself for death.

To philosophize is to learn to die.

One should be ever booted and spurred and ready to depart.