Famous Quotes by Michel Eyquem De Montaigne (138 Quotations)

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

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Fools and Foolishness]

From Obedience and submission comes all our virtues, and all sin is comes from self-opinion.

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Virtue]

Habit is second nature.

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Habit]

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

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Recreation]

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

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Argument]

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

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Memory]

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

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Lies and Lying]

He who lives not to others, lives little to himself.

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Service]

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

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Belief]

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 myself and not by borrowing.

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Opinions]

I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided if greater pains be the consequence, and pains to be coveted that will terminate in greater pleasures.

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Pleasure]

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

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Averages]

I do myself a greater injury in lying that I do him of whom I tell a lie.

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Lies and Lying]

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

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Miracles]

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

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Fear]

I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent. Such as are between both (which is the most common fashion), it is they that spoil all; they will needs chew our meat for us and take upon them a law to judge, and by consequence to square and incline the story according to their fantasy.

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [History and Historians]

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

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Reason]

I quote others in order to better express myself.

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Quotations]

I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Knowledge]

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 grow older.

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne – [Truth]