Quotes
Quotes - Montaigne
Man in sooth is a marvellous, vain, fickle, and unstable subject.
All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate.
It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.
He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.
The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.
Accustom him to everything, that he may not be a Sir Paris, a carpet-knight, but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man.
We were halves throughout, and to that degree that methinks by outliving him I defraud him of his part.
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.
Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at the expense of life.
Plato says, "'T is to no purpose for a sober man to knock at the door of the Muses;" and Aristotle says "that no excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of folly."
For a desperate disease a desperate cure.
And not to serve for a table-talk.
To which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who confers a benefit on any one loves him better than he is beloved by him again.
The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all; they will chew our meat for us.
The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write.
She [virtue] requires a rough and stormy passage; she will have either outward difficulties to wrestle with, ... or internal difficulties.
There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.
Some impose upon the world that they believe that which they do not; others, more in number, make themselves believe that they believe, not being able to penetrate into what it is to believe.
When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?
'T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things might certainly conclude as to both the future and the past.
The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould.... The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour causes a war betwixt princes.
Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.
Why may not a goose say thus: "All the parts of the universe I have an interest in: the earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me; the stars have their influence upon me; I have such an advantage by the winds and such by the waters; there is nothing that yon heavenly roof looks upon so favourably as me. I am the darling of Nature! Is it not man that keeps and serves me?"
