List of Michel de Montaigne Quotes

Few Men Have Been Admired Of Their Familiars.

I Do Not Know Whether I Would Not Like Much Better To Have Produced One Perfectly Formed Child By Intercourse With The Muses Than By Intercourse With My Wife.

It Makes Me Hate Accepting Things That Are Probable When They Are Held Up Before Me As Infallibly True. I Prefer These Words Which Tone Down And Modify The Hastiness Of Our Propositions: "perhaps, In Some Sort, Some, They Say, I Think," And The Like.

There Is A Plague On Man, The Opinion That He Knows Something.

A Good Marriage ... Is A Sweet Association In Life: Full Of Constancy, Trust, And An Infinite Number Of Useful And Solid Services And Mutual Obligations.

Arts And Sciences Are Not Cast In A Mould, But Are Found And Perfected By Degrees, By Often Handling And Polishing.

Books Are Pleasant, But If By Being Over-studious We Impair Our Health And Spoil Our Good Humour, Two Of The Best Things We Have, Let Us Give It Over. I, For My Part, Am One Of Those Who Think No Fruit Derived From Them Can Recompense So Great A Loss.

The Archer Who Overshoots His Mark Does No Better Than He Who Falls Short Of It.

Most Men Are Rich In Borrowed Sufficiency: A Man May Very Well Say A Good Thing, Give A Good Answer, Cite A Good Sentence, Without At All Seeing The Force Of Either The One Or The Other.

No Two Men Ever Judged Alike Of The Same Thing, And It Is Impossible To Find Two Opinions Exactly Similar, Not Only In Different Men But In The Same Men At Different Times.

And Therefore, Reader, I Myself Am The Subject Of My Book: It Is Not Reasonable That You Should Employ Your Leisure On A Topic So Frivolous And So Vain. Therefore, Farewell.

We Wake Sleeping, And Sleep Waking. I Do Not See So Clearly In My Sleep; But As To My Being Awake, I Never Found It Clear Enough And Free From Clouds.