Michel de Montaigne Quotes

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Michel de Montaigne

Profession : Philosopher

Birth : February 28, 1533

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

Michel de Montaigne

For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.

Michel de Montaigne

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

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 to dare to avouch for them.

Michel de Montaigne

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

Michel de Montaigne

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

Michel de Montaigne

The thing I fear most is fear.

Michel de Montaigne

If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself.

Michel de Montaigne

There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.

Michel de Montaigne

The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.

Michel de Montaigne

It is an absolute and virtually divine perfection to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.

Michel de Montaigne

I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.

Michel de Montaigne

There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.

Michel de Montaigne

We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany.

Michel de Montaigne

If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.

Michel de Montaigne

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

Michel de Montaigne

Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.

Michel de Montaigne

How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!

Michel de Montaigne