110+ Michel de Montaigne Quotes (Essayistic, Skeptical And Reflection)

Michel de Montaigne was a French philosopher and writer from the 16th century. He is credited with popularizing the essay as a literary genre and is known for his skeptical and humanistic approach to philosophy. He is best known for his essays, which were influential in the development of modern skepticism and empiricism.

Top 10 Michel De Montaigne Quotes

1. The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.
2. Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.
3. The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
4. There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
5. My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
6. A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.
7. The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
8. A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.
9. Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.
10. We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game.

Michel de Montaigne Image Quotes

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees. — Michel de Montaigne

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened. — Michel de Montaigne

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears. — Michel de Montaigne

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness. — Michel de Montaigne

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband. — Michel de Montaigne

It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others. — Michel de Montaigne

Michel De Montaigne Short Quotes

• ~The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them ~
• It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
• Man is quite insane. He wouldn?t know how to create a maggot, and he creates Gods by the dozen.
• No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.
• Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.
• We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
• The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.
• On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.
• There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
• When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.

Michel de Montaigne Famous Quotes And Sayings

We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say? — Michel de Montaigne

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees. — Michel de Montaigne

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened. — Michel de Montaigne

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears. — Michel de Montaigne

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness. — Michel de Montaigne

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband. — Michel de Montaigne

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent. — Michel de Montaigne

The daughter-in-law of Pythagoras said that a woman who goes to bed with a man ought to lay aside her modesty with her skirt, and put it on again with her petticoat — Michel de Montaigne

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly. — Michel de Montaigne

Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages. — Michel de Montaigne

If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love. — Michel de Montaigne

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself. — Michel de Montaigne

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak. — Michel de Montaigne

Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face. — Michel de Montaigne

Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart. If I were pressed to say why I loved him, I feel that my only reply could be: Because it was he, because it was I. — Michel de Montaigne

My home...It is my retreat and resting place from wars, I try to keep this corner as a haven against the tempest outside, as I do another corner in my soul. — Michel de Montaigne

I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing. — Michel de Montaigne

To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most. — Michel de Montaigne

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself. — Michel de Montaigne

There is no more expensive thing than a free gift. — Michel de Montaigne

Man is the sole animal whose nudities offend his own companions, and the only one who, in his natural actions, withdraws and hides himself from his own kind. — Michel de Montaigne

When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; his accusations of himself are always believed; his praises never. — Michel de Montaigne

Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness. — Michel de Montaigne

Excellent memories are often coupled with feeble judgments. — Michel de Montaigne

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes. — Michel de Montaigne

The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre. — Michel de Montaigne

Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. — Michel de Montaigne

True freedom is to have power over oneself for everything. — Michel de Montaigne

I enjoy books as misers enjoy treasures, because I know I can enjoy them whenever I please. — Michel de Montaigne

Man in sooth is a marvellous, vain, fickle, and unstable subject. — Michel de Montaigne

The lack of wealth is easily repaired but the poverty of the soul is irreplaceable. — Michel de Montaigne

Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being. — Michel de Montaigne

It is not necessity but abundance which produces greed. — Michel de Montaigne

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould — Michel de Montaigne

When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep; yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts drift to far-off matters for some part of the time for some other part I lead them back again to the walk, the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, to myself. — Michel de Montaigne

If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it. — Michel de Montaigne

The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage. — Michel de Montaigne

It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it. — Michel de Montaigne

Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee. — Michel de Montaigne

A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom. — Michel de Montaigne

Those things that are dearest to us have cost us the most. — Michel de Montaigne

Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people. — Michel de Montaigne

It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. A spirited mind never stops within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength. — Michel de Montaigne

Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul. — Michel de Montaigne

Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own. — Michel de Montaigne

He who is not very strong in memory should not meddle with lying. — Michel de Montaigne

No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port. — Michel de Montaigne

What harm cause not those huge draughts or pictures which wanton youth with chalk or coals draw in each passage, wall or stairs of our great houses, whence a cruel contempt of our natural store is bred in them? — Michel de Montaigne

After mature deliberation of counsel, the good Queen to establish a rule and immutable example unto all posterity, for the moderation and required modesty in a lawful marriage, ordained the number of six times a day as a lawful, necessary and competent limit. — Michel de Montaigne

I have often seen people uncivil by too much civility, and tiresome in their courtesy. — Michel de Montaigne

Who feareth to suffer suffereth already, because he feareth. — Michel de Montaigne

It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness. — Michel de Montaigne

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it. — Michel de Montaigne

Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do. — Michel de Montaigne

The worthiest man to be known, and for a pattern to be presented to the world, he is the man of whom we have most certain knowledge. He hath been declared and enlightened by the most clear-seeing men that ever were; the testimonies we have of him are in faithfulness and sufficiency most admirable. — Michel de Montaigne

The bees pillage the flowers here and there but they make honey of them which is all their own; it is no longer thyme or marjolaine: so the pieces borrowed from others he will transform and mix up into a work all his own. — Michel de Montaigne

It is the part of cowardliness, and not of virtue, to seek to squat itself in some hollow lurking hole, or to hide herself under some massive tomb, thereby to shun the strokes of fortune. — Michel de Montaigne

Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men. — Michel de Montaigne

It takes strong ears indeed to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship. For it is a healthy love that will risk wounding or offending in order to profer a benefit. — Michel de Montaigne

I know what I am fleeing from, but not what I am in search of. — Michel de Montaigne

If falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be more on equal terms. For we would consider the contrary of what the liar said to be certain. But the opposite of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite field. — Michel de Montaigne

There is no passion so contagious as that of fear. — Michel de Montaigne

Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition. — Michel de Montaigne

The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things. — Michel de Montaigne

If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways. — Michel de Montaigne

A man should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey, and above all things look he have then nothing to do but with himself. — Michel de Montaigne

I do myself a greater injury in lying that I do him of whom I tell a lie. — Michel de Montaigne

We are all of us richer than we think we are; but we are taught to borrow and to beg, and brought up more to make use of what is another's than of our own. — Michel de Montaigne

Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service. — Michel de Montaigne

We are more unhappy to see people ahead of us than happy to see people behind us. — Michel de Montaigne

The pleasantest things in the world are pleasant thoughts, and the great art of life is to have as many of them as possible. — Michel de Montaigne

To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty; and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value, is pusillanimity and cowardice. — Michel de Montaigne

Only the fools are certain and assured. — Michel de Montaigne

Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible. — Michel de Montaigne

Habit is second nature. — Michel de Montaigne

Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved. — Michel de Montaigne

It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor. — Michel de Montaigne

I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie. — Michel de Montaigne

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. — Michel de Montaigne

It is an absolute perfection... to get the very most out of one's individuality. — Michel de Montaigne

Of all the infirmities we have, the most savage is to despise our being. — Michel de Montaigne

A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself. — Michel de Montaigne

The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it. — Michel de Montaigne

In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price. — Michel de Montaigne

Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self. — Michel de Montaigne

There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others. — Michel de Montaigne

Difficulty is a coin the learned make use of like jugglers, to conceal the inanity of their art. — Michel de Montaigne

The weeping of an heir is laughter in disguise. — Michel de Montaigne

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void. — Michel de Montaigne

Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet - the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies. — Michel de Montaigne

There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains. The most universal quality is diversity. — Michel de Montaigne

Take care that old age does not wrinkle your spirit even more than your face. — Michel de Montaigne

To how many blockheads of my time has a cold and taciturn demeanor procured the credit of prudence and capacity! — Michel de Montaigne

A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can. — Michel de Montaigne

The most evident token and apparent sign of true wisdom is a constant and unconstrained rejoicing. — Michel de Montaigne

Life Lessons by Michel de Montaigne

1. Michel de Montaigne taught that life should be lived with moderation, as it is fleeting and unpredictable. He believed that people should strive to be self-aware and humble, and that they should take joy in the simple pleasures of life.
2. He also believed that one should accept the imperfections of life and strive to be tolerant of others, as well as to be open to new ideas and experiences.
3. Finally, Montaigne encouraged his readers to question their beliefs and to think critically about their lives, in order to live a more meaningful and fulfilling life.