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The only thing certain is nothing is certain.
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
Wise
Wisdom
Certain
Nothing
Thing
Attraction
Clever
Positive
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
Eloquence is an engine invented to manage and wield at will the fierce democracy, and, like medicine to the sick, is only employed in the paroxysms of a disordered state.
Michel de Montaigne
[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
Michel de Montaigne
It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness.
Michel de Montaigne
I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.
Michel de Montaigne
We have power over nothing except our will.
Michel de Montaigne
A man must not always tell all, for that be folly but what a man says should be what he thinks.
Michel de Montaigne
Lay a beam between these two towers of such width as we need to walk on: there is no philosophical wisdom of such great firmness that it can give us courage to walk on it as we should if it were on the ground.
Michel de Montaigne
If you have known how to compose your life, you have done a great deal more than the person who knows how to compose a book. You have done more than the one who has taken cities and empires.
Michel de Montaigne
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.
Michel de Montaigne
There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them.
Michel de Montaigne
It is probable that the principal credit of miracles, visions, enchantments, and such extraordinary occurrences comes from the power of imagination, acting principally upon the minds of the common people, which are softer.
Michel de Montaigne
I look upon the too good opinion that man has of himself, as the nursing mother of all false opinions, both public and private.
Michel de Montaigne
Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope, that in a mortal subject, and in a moment, makes nothing of usurping infinity, immensity, eternity, and of supplying its masters indigence, at its pleasure, with all things he can imagine or desire!
Michel de Montaigne
I agree that we should work and prolong the functions of life as far as we can, and hope that Death may find me planting my cabbages, but indifferent to him and still more to the unfinished state of my garden.
Michel de Montaigne
The world is but a perennial movement. All things in it are in constant motion-the earth, the rocks of the Caucasus, the pyramids of Egypt-both with the common motion and with their own.
Michel de Montaigne
The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.
Michel de Montaigne
The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write.
Michel de Montaigne
The easy, gentle, and sloping path . . . is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.
Michel de Montaigne
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.
Michel de Montaigne
One open way of speaking introduces another open way of speaking, and draws out discoveries, like wine and love.
Michel de Montaigne
