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Michel De Montaigne Quotes


The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.

The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.

The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.

The thing I fear most is fear.

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.

The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.

The world is but a perpetual see-saw.

The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.

There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.

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

There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge.

There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.

There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.

There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.

There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.

Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.

'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.