Quotes from Michel de Montaigne

The honor we receive from those that fear us, is not honor; those respects are paid to royalty and not to me.

Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.

When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.

If by being overstudious, we impair our health and spoil our good humor, let us give it up.

If health and a fair day smile upon me, I am a very good fellow; if a corn trouble my toe, I am sullen, out of humor, and inaccessible.

A strong imagination begetteth opportunity.

Things seem greater by imagination than they are in effect.

When I quote others I do so in order to express my own ideas more clearly.

The lack of wealth is easily repaired but the poverty of the soul is irreplaceable.

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.

Speaking is half his that speaks, and half his that hears.

It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many.

Ambition is not a vice of little people.

How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!

No wind favors he who has no destined port.

Children's games are hardly games. Children are never more serious than when they play.

Without doubt, it is a delightful harmony when doing and saying go together.

I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.

A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them.

It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.

Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate.

The wise man should withdraw his soul within, out of the crowd, and keep it in freedom and power to judge things freely; but as for externals, he should wholly follow the accepted fashions and forms.

The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice, atheism, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power.

No wonder, said an Ancient, that chance has so much power over us, since it is by chance that we live.