Michel de Montaigne Quotes - Page 3

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

Oh what a valiant faculty is hope.

On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.

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

Les naturels sanguinaires à l'endroit des bestes, tesmoignent une propension naturelle à la cruauté.

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

A wise man sees as much as he ought not as much as he can.

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

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

From books all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honourable pastime: or if I do study, I seek only that branch of learning which deals with knowing myself and which teaches me how to live and die well...

Je hay entre autres vices, cruellement la cruauté, et par nature et par jugement, comme l'extreme de tous les vices.

There is no man so good who were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.

There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience…These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant; and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us; it is the only payment that can never fail. “On Repentance

If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.

Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.

We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there.

We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.

Certainly, if he still has himself, a man of understanding has lost nothing.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to live to yourself.

A man with nothing to lend should refrain from borrowing.

To an atheist all writings tend to atheism: he corrupts the most innocent matter with his own venom.

This emperor was arbiter of the whole world at nineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty before he could be fit to determine a dispute about a gutter.

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

The Ancient Mariner said to Neptune during a great storm 'O God you will save me if you wish but I am going to go on holding my tiller straight.'

There are defeats more triumphant than victories.

All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own.

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.

I enjoy books as misers enjoy treasures, because I know I can enjoy them whenever I please.

Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.

What a prodigious conscience must that be that can be at quiet within itself whilst it harbors under thesame roof, with so agreeing and so calm a society, both the crime and the judge?