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[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

Michel de Montaigne

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Michel de Montaigne
Age: 59 †
Born: 1533
Born: February 28
Died: 1592
Died: September 13
Autobiographer
Essayist
French Moralist
Jurist
Philosopher
Poet Lawyer
Politician
Translator
Writer
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Miquèu Eiquèm de Montanha
Miqueu Eiquem de Montanha
Despair
Bird
Marriage
Within
Getting
Happens
Matrimony
Without
Cages
Birds

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Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it.
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It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness.
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When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing.
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All of the days go toward death and the last one arrives there.
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All opinions in the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end, although they differ as to the means of attaining it.
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One open way of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and draws out discoveries, like wine and love.
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There is nothing so extreme that is not allowed by the custom of some nation or other.
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No spiritual mind remains within itself it is always aspiring and going beyond its own strength.
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I 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.
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Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favorably and well in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life to alleviate the sense of them.
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Our skin is provided as adequately as theirs with endurance against the assaults of the weather: witness so many nations who have not yet tried the use of any clothes. Our ancient Gauls wore hardly any clothes nor do the Irish, our neighbors, under so cold a sky.
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I look upon the too good opinion that man has of himself, as the nursing mother of all false opinions, both public and private.
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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.
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The world always looks straights ahead as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others...they always go forward as for me, I roll about in myself.
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We are nearer neighbors to ourselves than the whiteness of snow or the weight of stones are to us: if man does not know himself, how should he know his functions and powers?
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How often, being moved under a false cause, if the person offending makes a good defense and presents us with a just excuse, are we angry against truth and innocence itself?
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The pleasantest things in the world are pleasant thoughts, and the great art of life is to have as many of them as possible.
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I have seen people rude by being over-polite.
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Learning must not only lodge with us: we must marry her.
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Friendship that possesses the whole soul, and there rules and sways with an absolute sovereignty, can admit of no rival.
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