1,152 Quotes by Michel de Montaigne

There is no passion so much transports the sincerity of judgment as doth anger.

Thus we should beware of clinging to vulgar opinions, and judge things by reason’s way, not by popular say.

I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind – and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.

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.

To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct.

Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one’s own goodness.

Learned we may be with another man’s learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.

Seneca’s virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary.

There are truths on this side of the Pyrenees which are falsehoods on the other.