Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592)
Influential French Renaissance writer, generally considered to be the inventor of the personal essay.
He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying.
I have seen no more evident monstrosity and miracle in the world than myself.
An untempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.
Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough.
Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.
Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.
Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
The day of your birth leads you to death as well as to life.
Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.
He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.
It (marriage) happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page-boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk— they are all part of the curriculum.
There is a plague on Man, the opinion that he knows something.
Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there.
Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so.
Labour not after riches first, and think thou afterwards wilt enjoy them. He who neglecteth the present moment, throweth away all that he hath. As the arrow passeth through the heart, while the warrior knew not that it was coming; so shall his life be taken away before he knoweth that he hath it.
Hath God obliged himself not to exceed the bounds of our knowledge?
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.