Michel de Montaigne

I want . . . death to find me planting my cabbages.

Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him.

C’est ce dequoy j’ay le plus de peur que la peur .

I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, and ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray.

I am myself the matter of my book.

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.

Valour is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.

No wind favors him who has no destined port.

I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can.

The want of goods is easily repaired, but the poverty of the soul is irreparable.

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

Children's playthings are not sports and should be deemed as their most serious actions.

Even on the most exalted throne in the world we are only sitting on our own bottom.

There is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is managed by order, method, and discipline.

Friendship is the highest degree of perfection in society.

How many things which served us yesterday as articles of faith, are fables for us today.

It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness.

We are born to inquire into truth it belongs to a greater to possess it.

I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

He who would teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.

No one is exempt from talking nonsense the mistake is to do it solemnly.

He who fears he will suffer, already suffers because of his fear.

Riches, like glory or heath, have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleased to lend them.

Since we cannot match it let us take our revenge by abusing it.

To philosophize is to doubt.

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.

A man of understanding has lost nothing, if he has himself.

The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure.

Wise men have more to learn of fools than fools of wise men.

I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself.

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.

So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination. ..And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do no bring forth in the agitation.

The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.

No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.