Michel de Montaigne quote: "Laws gain their authority from actual possession and custom: it is perilous to go back to their origins; laws, like our rivers, get greater and nobler as they roll along: follow them back upstream to their sources and all you find is a tiny spring, hardly recognizable; as time goes by it swells with pride and grows in strength."

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally de...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

My trade and art is to live.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I want death to find me planting my cabbage
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. My advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It is not death that alarms me, but dying.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Taking it all in all, I find it is more trouble to watch after money than to get it.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Man is stark mad; he cannot make a flea, and yet he will be making gods by the dozens.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I tell the truth, not as much as I would like to, but as much as I dare. I dare more and more as I g...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm, and yet will make Gods by dozens.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Every abridgement of a good book is a fool abridged.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books, They quickly...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Beca...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Nature should have been pleased to have made this age miserable, without making it also ridiculous.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

We are great fools: He has spent his life in idleness. We say, I have done nothing today. Really, ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

My art and profession is to live.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The finest lives in my opinion are the common model, without miracle and without extravagance.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

All the world knows me in my book, and may book in me.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

We cannot do without it, and yet we disgrace and vilify the same. It may be compared to a cage, the ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside desperate ...
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

For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their mos...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and vo...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, t...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves with railing against it.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

How many things served us but yesterday as articles of faith, which today we deem but fables?
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

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

One may be humble out of pride.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I quote others only in order the better to express myself. •Michel De Montaigne Certain br...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

We can be Knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I listen with attention to the judgement of all men; but so far as I can remember, I have followed n...
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 ...
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 ad...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

There are few men who dare to publish to the world the prayers they make to Almighty God.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I find I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardor of dispute, I ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It is much more easy to accuse the one sex than to excuse the other.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The most unhappy and frail creatures are men and yet they are the proudest.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Memory is the receptacle and case of science: and therefore mine being so treacherous, if I know lit...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The memory represents to us not what we choose but what it pleases.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

He who has not a good memory should never take upon himself the trade of lying.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I was not long since in a company where I was not who of my fraternity brought news of a kind of pil...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Men do not know the natural infirmity of their mind: it does nothing but ferret and quest, and keeps...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

No profession or occupation is more pleasing than the military; a profession or exercise both noble ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains. The most univ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I care not so much what I am in the opinion of others, as what I am in my own; I would be rich of my...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Let Nature have her way; she understands her business better than we do.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

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

Scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and the one nearest at hand.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided if greater pains be the consequence, and pains to be cov...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Philosophy is doubt.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

...there is no constant existence, neither of our being, nor of the objects. And we, and our judgeme...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The weeping of an heir is laughter in disguise.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be self-sufficient.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I consider myself an average man, except in the fact that I consider myself an average man.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The word is half his that speaks, and half his that hears it.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Laws are often made by fools, and even more often by men who fail in equity because they hate equali...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Just as in habiliments it is a sign of weakness to wish to make oneself noticeable by some peculiar ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

But sure there is need of other remedies than dreaming, a weak contention of art against nature.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The beauty of stature is the only beauty of men.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Socrates thought and so do I that the wisest theory about the gods is no theory at all.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

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

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

When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime for her more than she is to me?
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

True it is that she who escapeth safe and unpolluted from out the school of freedom, giveth more con...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Confidence in another person's virtue is no light evidence of your own.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is in conversation. I find it sweeter ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and contr...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Ambition is not a vice of little people.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its l...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to 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

He who is not very strong in memory should not meddle with lying.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

All the fame you should look for in life is to have lived it quietly.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Habit is second nature.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not la...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not t...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

My home...It is my retreat and resting place from wars, I try to keep this corner as a haven against...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent. Such as are between both (whi...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Example is a bright looking-glass, universal and for all shapes to look into.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It is very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of it.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

To honor him whom we have made is far from honoring him that hath made us..
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

No wind favors him who has no destined port.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbors, causeth a war ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The thing I fear most is fear.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I know what I am fleeing from, but not what I am in search of.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

A little of everything and nothing thoroughly, after the French fashion.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an ent...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us, and whereto our passions transport us; but thos...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It is a common seen by experience that excellent memories do often accompany weak judgments.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Of all the infirmities we have, the most savage is to despise our being.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It is the part of cowardliness, and not of virtue, to seek to squat itself in some hollow lurking ho...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I don't break the law* made for crooks, when I take away my own property - thus I am not obliged to ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at least in vigor and stability.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

There is no course of life so weak and Scottish as that which is ordered by orders, method, and disc...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Have you known how to take rest? You have done more than he who hath taken empires and cities.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

This notion is more clearly understood by asking What do I know?.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It happens as one sees in cages: the birds who are outside despair of ever getting in, and those wit...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I find no quality so easy for a man to counterfeit as devotion, though his life and manner are not c...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It is not the want, but rather abundance that creates avarice.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

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

We endeavor more that men should speak of us, than how and what they speak, and it sufficeth us that...
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...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

An unattempted lady could not vaunt of her chastity.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Princes give me sufficiently if they take nothing from me, and do me much good if they do me no hurt...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I quote others in order to better express myself.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The great and glorious masterpiece of man is how to live with purpose.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Once you have decided to keep a certain pile, it is no longer yours; for you can't spend it.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It should be noted that children's games are not merely games. One should regard them as their most ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrec...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Those who have compared our life to a dream were right.... We sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

My reason is not framed to bend or stoop: my knees are.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

After mature deliberation of counsel, the good Queen to establish a rule and immutable example unto ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Few men have been admired of their familiars.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

He who lives not to others, lives little to himself.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is ... opening a door that we may derive instruc...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection, otherwise yo...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

There never were in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most un...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

A man should keep for himself a little back shop, all his own, quite unadulterated, in which he esta...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Who feareth to suffer suffereth already, because he feareth.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Even on the highest throne in the world, we are still sitting on our ass.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

All is a-swarm with commentaries: of authors there is a dearth.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The strongest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than underst...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if yo...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, full...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, t...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet - the first vice in corru...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, gr...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. A spirited mind never s...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dis...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It should be noted that the games of children are not games, and must be considered as their most s...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate ...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Those that will combat use and custom by the strict rules of grammar do but jest.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Malice sucks up the greater part of her own venom, and poisons herself.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

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

Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a flea, yet he makes gods by the dozens.
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Michel de Montaigne

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