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We took advantage of [the Indians'] ignorance and inexperience to incline them the more easily toward treachery, lewdness, avarice, and every sort of inhumanity and cruelty, after the example and pattern of our ways.

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
Ways
Cruelty
Inexperience
Sort
Patterns
Incline
America
Easily
Inhumanity
Every
Advantage
Treachery
Way
Toward
Avarice
Ignorance
Indians
Took
Pattern
Example
Corruption
Lewdness

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He that I am reading seems always to have the most force.
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Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.
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No two men ever judged alike of the same thing, and it is impossible to find two opinions exactly similar, not only in different men but in the same men at different times.
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We are all of us richer than we think we are but we are taught to borrow and to beg, and brought up more to make use of what is another's than of our own.
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After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to the spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the slaughter of men, to the gladiators.
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The strength of any plan depends on the time. Circumstances and things eternally shift and change.
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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 same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbors, causeth a war to follow between Princes.
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Obstinacy and contention are common qualities, most appearing in, and best becoming, a mean and illiterate soul.
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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!
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A well-bred man is always sociable and complaisant.
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I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent. Such as are between both (which is the most common fashion), it is they that spoil all they will needs chew our meat for us and take upon them a law to judge, and by consequence to square and incline the story according to their fantasy.
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There is no doubt that Greek and Latin are great and handsome ornaments, but we buy them too dear.
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Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.
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And not to serve for a table-talk.
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A woman is no sooner ours than we are no longer hers.
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I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.
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A good marriage ... is a sweet association in life: full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of useful and solid services and mutual obligations.
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As far as fidelity is concerned, there is no animal in the world as treacherous as man.
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Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.
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