61 Quotes By Michel de Montaigne


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

For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.
Michel de Montaigne on sports

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.
Michel de Montaigne on sports

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.
Michel de Montaigne on strength

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.
Michel de Montaigne on truth

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.
Michel de Montaigne on truth

We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
Michel de Montaigne on wisdom

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
Michel de Montaigne on wisdom

I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.
Michel de Montaigne on work

Even on the most exalted throne in the world we areonly sitting on our own bottom.
Michel de Montaigne on success

It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
Michel De Montaigne on death

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.
Michel De Montaigne on death

Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.
Michel De Montaigne on death

Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.
Michel De Montaigne on goodness

I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.
Michel De Montaigne on honesty

One may be humble out of pride.
Michel De Montaigne on humility

'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
Michel De Montaigne on intelligence

My trade and art is to live.
Michel De Montaigne on life

As an enemy is made more fierce by our flight, so Pain grows proud to see us knuckle under it. She will surrender upon much better terms to those who make head against her.
Michel De Montaigne on pain

Hath God obliged himself not to exceed the bounds of our knowledge?
Michel De Montaigne on religion