Quotes from Michel de Montaigne

I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.

If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.

Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.

We are never present with, but always beyond ourselves; fear, desire, hope, still push us on toward the future.

Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.

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

Marriage...we cannot do without it, and yet we disgrace and vilify the same. It may be compared to a cage, the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair to get out.

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

It's not victory if it doesn't end the war.

Old age puts more wrinkles in our minds than on our faces.

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

When I religiously confess myself to myself, I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice.

Necessity reconciles and brings men together; and this accidental connection afterwards forms itself into laws

Desire and hope will push us on toward the future.

The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.

I quote others only in order to better express myself.

If falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be more on equal terms. For we would consider the contrary of what the liar said to be certain. But the opposite of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite field.

There were never in the world two opinions alike, any more than two hairs or two grains. Their most universal quality is diversity.

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

Saying is one thing, doing another. We must consider the sermon and the preacher distinctly and apart.

Man is the sole animal whose nudity offends his own companions, and the only one who, in his natural actions, withdraws and hides himself from his own kind.

We find our energies are actually cramped when we are overanxious to succeed.

I have seen no more evident monstrosity and miracle in the world than myself.