Quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Ambition: ...haughty's neighbor, or rather, her daughter.

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It is pure madness to judge truth and falsehood only by your own skill.

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Even though we are not made to discover the truth, it is our duty to seek it.

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What good is the knowledge of things, if because of it we lose our peace and serenity.

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When I imagine in my mind a man completely undressed (and precisely of that sex which is considered to be endowed with more beauty), when I imagine his faults and failings, all his inborn imperfections, then I find that we have grounds, more than any other animal, to cover our body.

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He who misses the target misses as much as he who misses the target.

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The best of our deeds is to live according to reason.

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People believe in nothing more than what they know least.

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If they didn't get what they wanted, they pretended to want what they got.

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Laws enjoy general respect not because they are just, but because they are laws.

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Life itself is neither good nor bad: it is a reservoir of both good and bad; it depends on what we do with it.

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If you can be learned by the knowledge of others, you can only be wise on your own.

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If living in need is bad, then there is no need to live in need.

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The soul that does not have a predetermined goal condemns itself to destruction, because, as the saying goes, he who is everywhere is nowhere.

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Satisfied is not the one whom others think so, but the one who considers himself to be satisfied.

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All means, provided they are not dishonest, capable of saving us from misfortunes and inconveniences, are not only permissible, but deserve all praise.

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The doctor who sets out to cure a patient for the first time must do so elegantly, cheerfully, and agreeably to the sufferer; a lazy doctor will never advance in his profession.

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To take a city by storm, to drive out the ambassador, to rule over the people - these are all wonderful actions. To laugh, love and be gentle with your family, without being at odds with yourself - it's something special, harder and less visible to those around you.

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There is no more humiliating response than contemptuous silence.

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No one gives all his money to others, but each one gives his time and life; and there is nothing with which we are more profligate, and in which stinginess is not more useful and praiseworthy.

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A thousand paths deviate from the goal, and only one leads straight to it.

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There is no bolder pursuit than the pursuit of knowledge.

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Whatever may be said, even in the case of virtue, the ultimate goal is enjoyment.

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Man... A single ray of the sun is enough to ignite and destroy him; it is enough to throw a little dust into his eyes (or let loose some bees...) and immediately all our legions, even under the command of one like Pompey, will be panic-stricken and utterly crushed.

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The science of manifesting in your natural essence is the mark of perfection and an almost divine quality. We tend to be someone else, without wanting to scrutinize our own being, and we step out of our own boundaries without knowing why we are really able to. There is no point in getting up on the catalige, because even on the catalige we have to move with the help of our own legs. And even on the highest throne in the world, we sit on the bottom.

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Vanity and curiosity - these are the two whips of our soul. The latter pushes us to stick our noses in everything, and the former forces us not to leave anything uncertain and undecided.

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Cowardice is the mother of cruelty.

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Man's happiness does not consist at all in dying beautifully, but, according to me, in living beautifully.

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Fate is more favorable to those enterprises in which success depends exclusively on it.

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With suffering it is the same as with precious stones, which shine more or less according to the setting in which we catch them; likewise, suffering embraces us as much as we let ourselves fall prey to it.

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Death must be like life; we don't become someone else just because we die.

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Since these people have failed to understand themselves and their own nature, which is constantly before their eyes and within them...can I trust their opinions about the causes of the ebb and flow of the Nile?

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What's great is that it stops being that way when it's inappropriate.

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The prudent man lost nothing if he kept to himself.

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The most remarkable thing in the world is knowing how to belong to yourself.

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The best evidence of wisdom is a permanent cheerfulness.

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A powerful imagination gives rise to chance.

"You should study more to understand that you know little."

"The most outstanding gifts can be destroyed by idleness."

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Even the most jaded, jaded mind is encouraged by fate to notice the tickling of real pleasures. When I do this, an immeasurable peace comes over me - I bend it, I direct my soul there so that it clings to it and enjoys the good. Not to get lost in it, to disappear in it, but for the opposite: to find yourself in it.

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Save time; even so, there is still plenty that we spend idle and use for evil. Even so, there is still a lot to do.

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We have to study, taste, live life and its gifts - swirl it in our mouths for a long time, so that we can properly thank the one from whom we received it as a gift. Most people enjoy pleasures like the relaxing feeling of sleep: unconsciously. When I feel something good, I don't just pick off the top, I dig to the root, because life is sweet, the fate of those who stop to enjoy its sweetness is sweet.

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It is a strange faith that believes what it believes because it has not the courage not to believe it!

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My life was filled with the most terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.

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We can arm ourselves with the knowledge of others, but we cannot acquire the wisdom of others.

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One should not always say everything, because that is foolishness; but what he says he means as he means it.

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No wind is good for someone who doesn't have a designated port.

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Man's trouble does not come from what happened, but from what he thinks about it.

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Why are you afraid of your last day?! It doesn't contribute to your death any more than any other. Every day leads to death, the last one gets there.

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Arrogance is our natural and inherent disease. (...) [Man] with the same vain imagination pushes himself to the side of God, ascribes a divine state, separates and separates himself from the multitude of creatures, sets a class for his brothers and companions, the animals, and attributes to them as many abilities and powers as he sees fit .

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Poverty of goods is easy to remedy: poverty of the soul is impossible.

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Holding a public office is always subject to all kinds of criticism, because too many heads judge it.

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I never learned from books, I only polished the edge of my mind with them.

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The desire to know is our innermost need. All roads are good that lead to it.

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Knowing the truth is such a great thing that you cannot neglect any path or even path that leads you closer to it.

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Reason has so many faces that it's hard to choose which one to join. So it is with experience. You can never filter enough certainty from the facts, because the facts are never the same. The main law of the motley fabric of things: difference and diversity.

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God is gracious to those from whom he takes life little by little; this is the only benefit of old age. The final death will be less complete and painful; it will only kill a half or a quarter of a person.

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In a motherly way, nature arranged in such a way that every action she ordered us to do because of our need was also beautiful, and she added not only reason as an incentive, but also desire: it is unfair to distort her laws.

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Even on the highest throne in the world, we only sit on our bottoms.

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Nothing brings back memories like the desire to forget.

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It takes a certain amount of intelligence to notice our ignorance; and we must press the door to know how it is closed to us.

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Health is a great treasure, the only one that is worth not only wasting time, sweat, fatigue, and wealth on, but also risking our lives in pursuit of it, because without it, life is just a pathetic scandal. Without it, lust, wisdom, science, virtue fade and weaken...

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The friendship I'm thinking of is such a fitting together that even the seams with which it was sewn together are blurred.

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Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live a righteous life. Everything else, power, treasures, lofty buildings, can only be props and stages in this life.

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What fools we are! "He spent his life doing nothing," we say. Or, "I didn't do anything today." Nothing? You lived! This is not only basic, but also your most glorious occupation.

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Writing rage is a symptom of a corrupt age.

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It is easier to practice poetry than to understand it.

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The soul longs so much for something that it can see as a goal, that if there is none, it turns against itself, creating huge, non-existent problems, just so that there is something on which it can work with all its might.

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When they ask me why I travel all the time, I answer: - I know what I'm running from. I just don't know what I'm looking for.

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With marriage, we are like with a cage: the birds outside want to get in by force, the ones already inside want to get out.

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Love never asks anything or anyone. It surprises me and rips me down mercilessly like an elemental force.

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If I had to articulate why I loved him, I could only say that because he is him and I am me.

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I'm so used to being together that I almost feel like I'm only half.

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Nor can my worst actions and qualities be so ugly as it is ugly and cowardly if I dare not admit them.

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Writing is not the cause of agony, it is born out of agony.

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The fire of love in love is just a frantic longing for what slips out of our hands.

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The most obvious sign of wisdom is constant cheerfulness.

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A soul without a firm purpose in life is lost. Being everywhere is like being nowhere.

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There is no passion that overshadows good judgment so much as anger.

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I know that the desire to travel is a symptom of restlessness and restlessness; but since these are the most human qualities. Yes, I confess, apart from dreams and desires, there is no satisfaction for me: only variety and freedom of movement are worth something, if anything is worth anything at all.

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Have you found peace in your life? It's more than conquering empires and cities. The most brilliant masterpiece of man is the right life.

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There is nothing more burdensome and boring than immeasurable prosperity.

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No one is poor by nature, but someone can be poor according to their own perception.

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Let the child sift through everything and not accept anything based on authority and statement.

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Women's element is opposition to their husbands. If they only have one chance to do this, they will grab it with both hands. Do we ever follow them? They are already finding out that they are right about everything.

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Did you do good? It is a beautiful and noble thing. Has someone else done something good for you? It's a useful thing. And the useful is not as lovable as the beautiful and noble.

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Pain takes time, and death overtakes us; all signs are that we feel nothing. Only his approach is terrifying.

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There's something about sleep being death's sweet sister. How easily we were thrown from wakefulness to sleep! How lightly we say goodbye to light and self-awareness!

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There are sins in which (so to speak) some kind of spiritual greatness lies: they require intelligence, diligence, courage, prudence, dexterity and finesse.

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Our daily behavior is guided by the whims of our desires, right, left, up, down, according to where the wind of the occasion blows; we only know what we want at the moment of demand, and we are as changeable as that particular animal that adapts to the color of its environment. Where we decide something, where we drop it; other times we fall back on it: full of fluctuations and inconsistency. We don't go, we drift like what the water carries: sometimes gently, sometimes wildly, depending on whether the price is angry or quiet.

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It is most difficult to be consistent, the easiest to be inconsistent.

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Sometimes the body ages first - sometimes the soul.

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Indifference is a huge advantage of our old age. Nothing affects us too much anymore, and we just wave when we've been tricked.

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When I hear about other people's problems, it doesn't particularly affect me. Rather, looking at myself, I ask, do I not have a similar problem? Another trouble warning for me. Did it happen with someone else? - It makes me pay more attention.

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In the end, there is nothing permanent, neither in us nor in things; and we and our judgments and all mortal things flow and wave unceasingly; so then we do not know anything certain, we cannot know, since the judge and the judged are in constant change and rotation.

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My frequent amusement is to accept the truth of an opinion diametrically opposed to mine: in such cases, my imagination gets tangled up like a tendril, and I no longer find the meaning of my original view.

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What is a pleasure in one hour is a pain in the next.

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How many different ways we judge things! How many times our idea changes! What I believe today, I believe with all my imagination; I grab it with all my tentacles and arms... I'm in it up to my neck, body and soul; but not once, but a hundred, a thousand times, and every day I get it again and again, and again I just let it go.

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He who wants to acquire knowledge should fish where it hides.

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I love my children born from the embrace of the muses more than those born from my wife's lap.

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We love our children for a very simple reason: we gave birth to them, we see them as our second selves. Although we also have much nobler and more remarkable children: children of our soul, creatures of our spiritual nature, our knowledge, the nobler half of ourselves. They are truly ours: we are their father and birth mother in one person. We paid more for them, but they will bring more joy if our offspring are truly worthy. We have little to do with the merit of the children born of our bodies; little more than to bring them to life. But all their troubles and rewards are ours. They actually reflect - they don't.

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Every hour of every day, we say things that we could say more about ourselves if we turned our attention inward. Many people thus become their own enemies, because they recklessly attack their opponents with weapons that they easily turn back...

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I don't like to call the subject's obligatory feeling respect. After all, it's not for me, but for my rank.

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Constant comfort takes away the taste of things, deprives you of true joy. If you could quench all your thirst at once, you would no longer enjoy the drink. You laugh at the magicians' jokes: to them the robot is just that.

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Friendship is different and our attraction to women is different, although both come from free choice. The fire of love, I confess, is fiercer, more burning, and more corrosive; but this is an adventurous and fleeting fire, undulating and snarling; the fire of fever, which rises and falls and only stays at the tip of our suba. The warmth of friendship is crumbling, moderate, and evenly warm; constant, sweet and melting temperature, not hot and not suffocating.

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If we want the child to be afraid of punishment and humiliation, don't make him used to it!

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Silence and modesty are the main decoration of the conversation.

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The child should get used to enduring the exhausting exercises, so that he can endure a broken leg, colic, burns, prison or even torture. We live in times where the latter stalks both good and evil, as we experience day after day.

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The soul aches when the body relaxes next to it.

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He who wants to carve a man out of a boy, should not spare him in his adolescence; you can even defy medical prescriptions.

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It is not good if the child is brought up under the protective wings of parents, because instinctive attachment and love inevitably pampers even the best person into a soft, unlivable person.

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Truth and wisdom are public property: not the one who said it first or the one who said it afterwards.

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Solitude has one goal - I think: to live calmly and as we please.

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What do you think that he who you see clinging to the ruins of that besieged castle wall, furious and beside himself, exposed to the hits of so many muskets; or the other, whose face is covered with scars, and who himself is deathly exhausted and yellow with hunger, but determined to die rather than open the gates...: well, what do you think, they shed their blood for themselves? Come on! They will sell their skins for someone whom they have never seen, and who meanwhile is immersed in idleness and pleasures, and does not even care about the sacrifice of the poor devils.

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Do not think that commanding is such an easy thing if you know well the hesitation of human judgment and the difficulty of deciding on new and doubtful matters.

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Certainly, ruling over others is not an easy science at all, when self-control also causes so many problems and troubles.

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No matter how many treasures you have, it's worthless if you can't use it. It is not the possession, but the enjoyment of our possessions that makes us happy.

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Just as the comedians put on an imperial or princely mask one minute, and the next they are servants or pitiful burden bearers, according to the prescribed role, so it is with the emperor. His public splendor dazzles me, but also, peering through the crack in the curtain, the pride of a very ordinary man; sometimes even more ordinary than his last subject.

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If we put man on the pan of the scale, isn't it strange that he is the only one who is not valued by his own measure? The horse is praised for its strength and endurance, but never for the beauty of its harness. A hound for its speed and not its collar or leash, a bird for its wings and not its bells. I wonder why we don't value man for his only property? Why only for his car, his shiny palace, his credit, the size of his income, when all these are just things that surround him and do not show the content of his soul?

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Whether we spend our time farming, hunting, reading books or other activities, we should squeeze every drop of joy out of it, but don't take a step further if wormwood starts to sour the taste of our mouths.

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If the headache could get you before the drunkenness, we would be able to avoid drinking too much. But the pleasure of deceiving us always lurks in front and covers up its consequences.

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Who wouldn't willingly give up their health, peace of mind, even their life - in exchange for some fame and glory, for this most vulgar, useless and fake of our change?

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Everything is governed by the law of variability. Reason searches in vain for permanence, but is always disappointed, because there is nothing permanent, nothing permanent: everything is created, but nothing exists, and everything is already dying, even before it was born...

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At a time when truth is dead, every brave act is thought to be honest.

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A noble should not pretend to defend himself if he cannot defend himself anyway.

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There is reason to say that the body should not follow its desires to the detriment of the soul; but why would it be less reasonable for the soul not to follow its desires to the detriment of the body?

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If I write, I renounce the company and memory of books, for I fear they will stretch my individual form; to tell the truth, also in my fear that the good writers will weigh on me and take my courage. I would like to cite the example of the painter who, after defacing a picture of roosters, forbade his servants to bring live roosters into his studio from now on.

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I hate grumpy and sloppy-tempered people who skim over the joys of life and get entangled in every trouble, almost grazing on it like flies; who cannot hold on to smooth surfaces, so they land on bumpy and unplaned points; or like the leech, which only sucks bad blood.

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All my possessions belong to my physical children: their inalienable inheritance. What I leave to them is no longer mine. What they experience - I no longer learn. What they like - I might push it far away from me. Maybe I'm wiser - maybe. But they are richer.

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Our imaginations love to zoom in. I myself have been quite healthy most of my life; I was almost drained of vitality and frolicking like a colt. In this flowery, festive state, I suffered terribly from all ailments; when I got sick, I didn't even feel its sting so much, and my fear seemed almost like a nightmare. I have experienced every day: when the fire in the fireplace crackles in my room and the stormy night roars outside, I think with pity of those who are struggling outside; but if I'm stuck outside myself, I almost don't want to stay under a roof.

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By practice and experience we can guard against pain, disgrace, misery, and other accidents; but we practice death only once, and we are all apprentices before it.

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If you listen to me, you will always think that few have survived your age; and that you have been able to live until now means that you have gained an advantage over them. You have passed the standard age limit a long time ago, so appreciate the rest of your life and don't hope that you will make it through the next few years. Death opens up so many possibilities day after day: the world stumbles and stumbles around them. The surprising grace of your fate has kept you alive until now: it can't last long.

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A good marriage rejects the substance of love and seeks the lifestyle of friendship. This is a precious association for life; perseverance and trust, a community of interests, a complicated web of useful tasks and mutual obligations.

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If we are no longer able to reach him, let's take revenge by slapping him!

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Not all greatness ends in failure: there is a mountain from which you can easily descend.

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No one gives away their money for free - everyone happily gives away their time and life; we don't waste anything like these, although stinginess would be a useful and praiseworthy thing in such things.

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I struggle hand and foot against tasks that take me away from myself and chain me to something else. We lend ourselves there if necessary: ​​but we only give ourselves to ourselves.

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One can mourn the good old days, but one cannot escape from the present.

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Traveling is an excellent experience. Our mind constantly exercises the perception of unknown and new things; and there is no better school for the polished life than when we recall the images of many other forms of being, moods and habits and taste the diversity of nature's figures.

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The world is stupid for him to heal himself: he hisses so impatiently when the boots squeeze him that he has only one concern - to kick him off as soon as possible; he no longer cares at what price.

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In my opinion, the most difficult and riskiest craft in the world: to reign with dignity.

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I hate domination, whether I have to exercise it or suffer it.

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We overestimate greatness, just as we overestimate the determination of those whom we know or have heard despised or voluntarily renounced it; for in its essence, greatness is not such a clearly comfortable state that if someone rejects it, we marvel at it.

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Love marriages deteriorate quickly. Marriage must be built on a more reliable and durable foundation than love.

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What did the operation of procreation, so natural, so necessary, so true, do wrong that we dare not talk about it without blushing and exclude it from our serious and normal conversations? Well, we happily pronounce these words: kill, steal, betray; we only dare to hiss about this between our teeth.

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Sin wounds the soul as boils the body; and it will be just as bloody if scratched. Because reason disarms sadness and sorrow, but regret comes from somewhere else, and the deeper it emerges, the more diffuse it is; just as we shiver more from feverish chills than from winter cold.

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Moral rules bind the ordinary mortal just as much as they do the ruler in his ornate robes.

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How many people find their voice when they should be silent forever!

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It is an everyday phenomenon that good intentions, if applied without a collar, have tragic consequences.

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The cornerstone of all virtues: love the truth for its own sake. A deceitful person who only tells the truth when he is forced to, or when he sees the benefit of telling the truth; but he lies immediately if the risk is small and he cannot be caught.

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Beauty is an ancient link in human contact; he reconciles everyone, and there is hardly a barbaric and sullen person whom his pleasure does not bring down.

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He who does good only because others find out, and if they found out, he will have more honor; whose only concern and condition is that his beneficence and virtue be publicized: we should never expect service from such a person.

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Whoever is defenseless from one side is defenseless from all sides.

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There is no goodness that does not make the soul complacent.

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A reckless criminal can feel safe. But you can never feel the unclouded joy of contentment and satisfaction.

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The book holds many pleasant surprises for those who can choose. But there is no joy without joy. Like other pleasures, this also has its (very hurtful) downsides: the soul is strengthened by it; but during this time the body (...) remains inactive, languishes, grieves.

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In my youth I studied to show off my knowledge; later - to become a wiser person; currently just for fun; and never for any profit.

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Neither in peace nor in war do I set out without books.

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In love, where sight and touch play such a big role, without the charms of the spirit we are just going for something, but without the charms of the body we are certainly going for nothing.

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There is no more difficult or easier occupation than when one can play with one's thoughts as one likes.

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He is not his own good friend, even less his master, but his slave - who is always consistent and so stubbornly adheres to his prescribed path that he cannot be diverted, cannot be pushed out of that certain rut.

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The most flexible and colorful personality is always the most beautiful.

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Education helps and develops our natural tendencies, but it never changes or destroys them.

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Most of the world's rules require us to give up on ourselves and stand on the square, serving among them. People consider it their merit to divert us from ourselves, since by natural inclination we are supposed to be too attached to our precious person anyway; and they use every argument to defend their case. But is this the first time that wise men do not present things as they are, but consider their benefits?