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Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.

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
Men
Universal
Pole
Common
Bond
Upon
Disposition
Less
Excess
Compatriots
Making
Account
Frenchman
Truth
Accounts
Perchance
Look
Embrace
Frenchmen
Looks
National
Socrates

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Tis faith alone that vividly and certainly comprehends the deep mysteries of our religion.
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One may be humble out of pride.
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The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.
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He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
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Rejoice in the things that are present all else is beyond thee.
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My errors are by now natural and incorrigible but the good that worthy men do the public by making themselves imitable, I shall perhaps do by making myself evitable.
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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.
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We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.
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Women are not altogether in the wrong when they refuse the rules of life prescribed to the World, for men only have established them and without their consent.
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I seek in the reading of books, only to please myself, by an honest diversion.
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Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures.
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The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.
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Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.
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When Socrates, after being relieved of his irons, felt the relish of the itching that their weight had caused in his legs, he rejoiced to consider the close alliance between pain and pleasure.
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Not only does the wind of accidents stir me according to its blowing, but I am also stirred and troubled by the instability of my attitude.
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Knowledge is an excellent drug but no drug has virtue enough to preserve itself from corruption and decay, if the vessel be tainted and impure wherein it is put to keep.
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Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.
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The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.
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Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass?
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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.
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