01UndatedPride and curiosity are the two scourges of our souls. The latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved and undecided.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
02UndatedAnd in this we must for the most part entertain ourselves with ourselves, and so privately that no exotic knowledge or communication be admitted there; there to laugh and to talk, as if without wife, children, goods, train, or attendance, to the end that when it shall so fall out that we must lose any or all of these, it may be no new thing to be without them. We have a mind pliable in itself; that will be company; that has wherewithal to attack and to defend, to receive and to give: let us not then fear in this solitude to languish under an uncomfortable vacuity.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
03UndatedI...think it much more supportable to be always alone, than never to be so.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
05UndatedThe greatest thing in the world is to know how to live to yourself.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
06UndatedExperience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
07UndatedWhat a prodigious conscience must that be that can be at quiet within itself whilst it harbors under thesame roof, with so agreeing and so calm a society, both the crime and the judge?Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
08UndatedMy life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
09UndatedThis emperor was arbiter of the whole world at nineteen, and yet would have a man to be thirty before he could be fit to determine a dispute about a gutter.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
10UndatedIf 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 / quote ↗
11UndatedIf I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
12UndatedWe need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
13UndatedFrom books all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honourable pastime: or if I do study, I seek only that branch of learning which deals with knowing myself and which teaches me how to live and die well...Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
14UndatedWe only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
15UndatedWe trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
16UndatedBetween ourselves, there are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
19UndatedTis no wonder, says one of the ancients, that chance has so great a dominion over us, since it is by chance we live.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
20UndatedI do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
21UndatedThe great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live with purpose.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
22UndatedA man must live in the world and make the best of it such as it is.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
23UndatedGreatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself.Michel de Montaigne / quote ↗
