Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
Michel de Montaigne
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Michel de Montaigne quotes
Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.
Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.
A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.
Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.
Ambition is not a vice of little people.
An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.
Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.
Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet - the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.
Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.
Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.
Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.
For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.
Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.
Hath God obliged himself not to exceed the bounds of our knowledge?
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.
How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.
I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.
I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.
I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.
I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.
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.
If 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.
In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum.
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
Labour not after riches first, and think thou afterwards wilt enjoy them. He who neglecteth the present moment, throweth away all that he hath. As the arrow passeth through the heart, while the warrior knew not that it was coming; so shall his life be taken away before he knoweth that he hath it.
Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.
Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.
Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream.
Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.
Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
My trade and art is to live.
No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.
Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.
One may be humble out of pride.
Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.
Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves with railing against it.
The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.
The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.
The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world; yet all this is but One.
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.
The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.
The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
The thing I fear most is fear.
The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.
The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.
The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.
The world is but a perpetual see-saw.
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.
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.
There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.
There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.
There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.
We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.
What do I know?
When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
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