Michel de Montaigne

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

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

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

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.

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

Ambition is not a vice of little people.

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 no bring forth in the agitation.

Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.

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

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

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

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.

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.

We have more poets thatnjudges and interpreters of poetry. It is easier to write an indifferent poem that to understand a good one.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.

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.

There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others.

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

To philosophize is to doubt.

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

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

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

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.

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

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

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

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.

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

- Michel de Montaigne