Guess quote

Michel de Montaigne [1533-1592] French

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance, known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre.

Good, Marriage, Wisdom, Communication, Courage, Death, Education, Knowledge, Life, Nature, Age, Alone, Brainy, Business, Chance, Dreams, Failure, Faith, Fear, Friendship, Intelligence, Leadership, Learning, Legal, Love, Sports, Strength, Valentine's Day

Quote	Tags	Rank
A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.	Good, Marriage	101
Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.	Brainy	102
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.	Life	103
If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.	Valentine's Day	104
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.	Failure	105
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.		106
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.		107
If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.	Friendship, Good, Love, Marriage	108
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.	Education	109
Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.		110
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.	Death, Nature	111
I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.		112
A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.		113
Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.	Marriage	114
There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.	Good	115
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.	Legal	116
An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.		117
The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.	Courage	118
There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.	Alone, Communication	119
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.	Death	120
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.		121
Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.	Dreams	122
I quote others only in order the better to express myself.		123
I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.		124
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.		125
'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.		126
We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.	Knowledge, Wisdom	201
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.		202
Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.	Business, Nature	203
There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.	Fear	204
Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.	Learning, Sports	205
If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.		206
Ambition is not a vice of little people.		207
A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.		208
Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.		209
Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.		210
A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.		211
The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.		212
Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.		213
The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.		214
In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.		215
It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my reason.		216
I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man's estate.		217
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.		218
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.	Wisdom	219
My trade and art is to live.	Life	220
Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.		221
Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.	Age	222
I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.		223
How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!		224
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.		225
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.	Intelligence	226
Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.	Good	301
Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream.		302
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.		303
How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.	Faith	304
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.	Wisdom	305
There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.		306
He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.		307
I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older.		308
I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.		309
Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.		310
It is an absolute and virtually divine perfection to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.		311
There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge.	Knowledge	312
If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.		313
No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.	Communication	314
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.		315
Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.	Courage	316
Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.	Marriage	317
Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.		318
One may be humble out of pride.		319
The world is but a perpetual see-saw.		320
In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum.	Education	321
When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.		322
Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.	Chance	323
No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.	Leadership	324
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.		325
Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.		326
Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie.		401
Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.		402
It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. A spirited mind never stops within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength.	Strength	403
Few men have been admired of their familiars.		404
We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany.		405
A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them.		406
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.		407
Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.		408
If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself.		409
The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world; yet all this is but One.		410
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.		411
I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.		412
The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.		413
Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.		414
For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.		415
We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.		416
Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.		417
The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.		418
The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.		419
The thing I fear most is fear.		420
The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.		421
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.		422
The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.		423
The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things.		424
There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.		425
I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.		426
Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.		501
The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.		502
I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy.		503

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