Michel de Montaigne

Accustom him to every thing, that he may not be a Sir Paris, a carpet-knight, but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man.

Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head.

Je ne dis les autres, sinon pour d'autant plus me dire.

Un peu de chaque chose, et rien du tout, a la française.

To call out for the hand of the enemy is a rather extreme measure, yet a better one, I think, than to remain in continual fever over an accident that has no remedy. But since all the precautions that a man can take are full of uneasiness and uncertainty, it is better to prepare with fine assurance for the worst that can happen, and derive some consolation from the fact that we are not sure that it will happen.

Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.

We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there.

The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.

All of the days go toward death and the last one arrives there.

Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to have a sufficient length of life. Is it possible you can imagine never to arrive at the place towards which you are continually going? and yet there is no journey but hath its end. And, if company will make it more pleasant or more easy to you, does not all the world go the self-same way?

Live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead.

The day of your birth is one day’s advance towards the grave.

He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.

All the opinions of the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end.

Je veux que la mort me trouve plantant mes choux.

Whatever can be done another day can be done today.

He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.

C'est ce de quoi j'ai le plus de peur que la peur.

We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, which is the cause that what we believe we do not believe, and cannot disengage ourselves from what we condemn.

Things are not so painful and difficult of themselves, but our weakness or cowardice makes them so.

How many we know who have fled the sweetness of a tranquil life in their homes, among their friends, to seek the horror of uninhabitable deserts; who have flung themselves into humiliation, degradation, and the contempt of the world, and have enjoyed these and even sought them out.

Every rich man is avaricious, in my opinion.

I live from day to day, and content myself with having enough to meet my present and ordinary needs; for the extraordinary, all the provision in the world could not suffice.

It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.

A strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment.

All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate.

Certes, c'est un subject merveilleusement vain, divers, et ondoyant, que l'homme. Il est malaisé d'y fonder jugement constant et uniforme.

Je veux qu'on me voit en ma façon simple, naturelle, et ordinaire, sans étude et artifice; car c'est moi que je peins...Je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre.