Michel de Montaigne

He who has not a good memory should never take upon himself the trade of lying.

It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others

In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection, otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books.

I quote others only in order the better to express myself.

Malice sucks up the greater part of her own venom, and poisons herself.

I believe it to be true that dreams are the true interpreters of our inclinations; but there is art required to sort and understand them.

It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one.

Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a flea, yet he makes gods by the dozens.

Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.

Even on the highest throne in the world, we are still sitting on our ass.

Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

To philosophize is to doubt.

When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.

He who is not very strong in memory should not meddle with lying.

I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself.

Since we cannot match it let us take our revenge by abusing it.

Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; his accusations of himself are always believed; his praises never.

The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.

Ambition is not a vice of little people.

He who establishes his argument by noise and command, shows that his reason is weak.

The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure.

A man of understanding has lost nothing, if he has himself.

Even on the most exalted throne in the world we are only sitting on our own bottom.

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.

Wise men have more to learn of fools than fools of wise men.

I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can.

Each man calls barbarism what is not his own practice for indeed it seems we have no other test of truth and reason that the example and pattern of the opinions and customs of the country we live in.

So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination... And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation.

To set a mark we can seldom hit is not an honest game. We take good care not to be righteous according to the laws of God, and we make it impossible to be righteous according to our own. From the same sheet of paper on which a judge writes his sentence against an adulterer, he tears off a piece to scribble a love note to his colleague's wife.