Michel de Montaigne Quotes

On protecting time for yourself inside a busy family life:

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

On finding your own voice after years of imitating mentors:

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

On forgiving yourself for a past you would not want examined too closely:

There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.

On measuring a short life by what it contained:

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them.

On the anxiety that rehearses disasters that never arrive:

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.

On the dread before a hard medical test:

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

On choosing lightness without pretending problems do not exist:

The most manifest sign of wisdom is continued cheerfulness.

On holding your contradictions without needing to resolve them:

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself.

On the restlessness that hits a stable marriage:

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.

On a relative who is certain about something they have not researched:

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

Trying to explain to others why a particular friendship matters so much:

If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.

Recognizing when a friendship has become something rarer than most:

In the friendship I speak of, souls mix and blend with each other so completely that they efface the seam that joins them.

Admitting how much a friend's death has actually changed you:

Since the day I lost him, I only drag on a languishing life.

Deciding whether to seek out mentors instead of figuring it out alone:

It is good to rub and polish our brains against those of others.

Making a decision while everything around you keeps shifting:

The world is but a perpetual see-saw.

Checking your own certainty before you dismiss what you cannot explain:

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

Judging a partner's family for traditions that just differ from your own:

Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice.

Deciding whether a promotion should change how you treat people:

On the highest throne in the world, we are seated, still, upon our arses.