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We are born to inquire after truth it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.

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
Born
Possess
Truth
Height
Power
Bottom
Infinite
Democritus
Divine
Deeps
Greater
Inquire
Knowledge
Elevated
Rather
Belongs

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I honor most those to whom I show least honor and where my soul moves with great alacrity, I forget the proper steps of ceremony.
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There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.
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The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man some contribute treachery, others injustice, atheism, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power.
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The world is but a school of inquisition it is not who shall enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses.
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I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and reason, as the worst of all the vices. But then I am so soft in this that I cannot seea chicken's neck wrung without distress, and cannot bear to hear the squealing of a hare between the teeth of my hounds.
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And obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at least in vigour and stability.
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And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets?
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I find no quality so easy for a man to counterfeit as devotion, though his life and manner are not conformable to it the essence of it is abstruse and occult, but the appearances easy and showy.
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Learning must not only lodge with us: we must marry her.
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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.
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Every period of life has its peculiar prejudices whoever saw old age, that did not applaud the past, and condemn the present times?
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God defend me from being an honest man according to the description which every day I see made by each man to his own glorification
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A volunteer, you assign yourself specific roles and risks according to your judgement of their brilliance and importance, and you see when life itself may be justifiably devoted to them.
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Health is a precious thing, and the only one, in truth, meriting that a man should lay out not only his time, sweat, labor and goods, but also life itself to obtain it.
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The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.
Michel de Montaigne
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The honor we receive from those that fear us, is not honor those respects are paid to royalty and not to me.
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Teach him a certain refinement in sorting out and selecting his arguments, with an affection for relevance and so for brevity. Above all let him be taught to throw down his arms and surrender to truth as soon as he perceives it, whether the truth is born at his rival's doing or within himself from some change in his ideas.
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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.
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It is for little souls, that truckle under the weight of affairs, not to know how clearly to disengage themselves, and not to know how to lay them aside and take them up again.
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Age imprints more wrinkles a in the mind, than it does in the face, and souls are never, or very rarely seen, that in growing old do not smell sour and musty. Man moves all together, both towards his perfection and decay.
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