Michel de Montaigne Quotes

Even on the highest throne, one sits on one's own bottom.

We care more that people talk about us than how they talk about us.

Even if I could make myself fearsome, I would prefer to make myself kind.

There is no present: what we call so is just the point of union between the future and the past.

Science is a scepter in certain hands, while in others it is only a plaything.

There is nothing I fear more than fear itself.

Every honorable person would rather lose honor than lose conscience.

Gold can do a lot, but beauty more.

Beauty is a great recommendation in human commerce, and there is no one so barbarous or rude that does not feel hurt by its sweetness.

Of all the benefits that virtue brings us, one of the greatest is the contempt for death.

Whoever wished that man did not know pain, would at the same time avoid the knowledge of pleasure and reduce man himself to nothing.

He who does not live in some way for others, also does not live for himself.