“A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.”
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Famous Michel de Montaigne Quotes
“I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)
“Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.”
Source: The Essays
“Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.”
“In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.”
“I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.”
“I quote others only in order the better to express myself.”
Source: The Works of Michael de Montaigne: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy
“It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.”
“Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.”
Source: Complete Essays
“Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.”
“Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.”
“Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.”
Source: The Complete Works of Michael de Montaigne; Comprising; the Essays, Translated by Cotton; the Letters; the Journey Into Germany and Italy, Now First Translated; a Life by the Editor; Notes: ... Critical Opinions; ... the Éloges of MM. Jay and Villemain; a
“'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.”
Source: Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays
“One may be humble out of pride.”
Source: Essays of Montaigne
“The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.”
Source: Essays [tr. by Cotton
“There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.”
Source: Complete Essays
“Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.”
“No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.”
Source: Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays
“The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.”
“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.”
“It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.”
“Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.”
“No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.”
Source: Selected Essays: With La Boetie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
“A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.”
Source: Works, Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy: With Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices &c., &c
“Ambition is not a vice of little people.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)
“Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.”
“How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!”
Source: The Essays
“I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.”
Source: The Essays
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)
“Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)
“Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.”
“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.”
Source: Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays
“Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.”
Source: Michel de Montaigne: Selected Essays
“There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.”
Source: Complete Essays
“Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.”
Source: Essays