The 24 Best Things Montaigne Ever Said

• A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.
• The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.
• There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
• My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
• Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.
• Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.
• One may be humble out of pride.
• The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
• The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.
• If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.
• If you don’t know how to die, don’t worry. Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don’t bother your head about it.
• It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my reason.
• Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
• I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.
• I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
• If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.
• I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
• I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.
• I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
• When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
• Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.
• A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.
• Ambition is not a vice of little people.
• Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.

- via here