“There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others.”
Source: Selected Essays: With La Boetie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
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Famous Michel de Montaigne Quotes
“The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.”
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
“In general I ask for books that make use of learning, not those that build it up.”
Source: Complete Essays
“Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm or a flea and yet will create Gods by the dozen!”
Source: Complete Essays
Source: Essays
Source: Essays
Source: Complete Essays
Source: Complete Essays
“If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.”
Source: Complete Essays
Source: Essays
Source: Essays
“The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar.”
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”
Source: Complete Essays
“Saying is one thing and doing is another”
Source: Complete Essays
Source: Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays
“There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened.”
“Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition.”
Source: Complete Essays
“Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures.”
“I speak to the paper, as I speak to the first person I meet.”
Source: Essays
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Illustrated)
Source: Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays
“Excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgments.”
Source: Essays
Source: Essays
“I enjoy books as misers enjoy treasures, because I know I can enjoy them whenever I please.”
Source: The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
“Certainly, if he still has himself, a man of understanding has lost nothing.”
Source: The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
“The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.”
“We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.”
Source: Essays
Source: Four Essays
“All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own.”
Source: The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
“Off I go, rummaging about in books for sayings which please me.”
Source: The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
“Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.”
Source: The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
“No one should be subjected to force over things which belonged to him.”
Source: The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Source: All the Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne
Source: Autobiography: Comprising the Life of the Wisest Man of His Times ...
“One must be a little foolish if one does not want to be even more stupid.”
Source: Complete Essays