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

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True freedom is to have power over oneself for everything.
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We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game.
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For a desperate disease a desperate cure.
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The only thing certain is nothing is certain.
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Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance.
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We have so much ill fortune as inconstancy, or so much bad purpose as folly, we are not so full of evil as we are of inanity we are not so wretched as we are base
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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.
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The most useful and honorable science and occupation for a woman is the science of housekeeping. I know some that are miserly, very few that are good managers.
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Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him.
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Some, either from being glued to vice by a natural attachment, or from long habit, no longer recognize its ugliness.
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A person is bound to lose when he talks about himself if he belittles himself, he is believed if he praises himself, he isn't believed.
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If my intentions were not to be read in my eyes and voice, I should not have survived so long without quarrels and without harm, seeing the indiscreet freedom with which I say, right or wrong, whatever comes into my head.
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Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it.
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The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
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Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.
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We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.
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There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.
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Socrates and then Archesilaus used to make their pupils speak first they spoke afterwards. 'Obest plerumque iss discere volunt authoritas eorum qui docent.' [For those who want to learn, the obstacle can often be the authority of those who teach]
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Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.
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It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one.
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