Quotes from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“I quote others only in order the better to express myself.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“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.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“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.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“Combien de choses nous servoyent hier d’articles de foy, qui nous sont fables aujourd’huy?

How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which today are fables for us?”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“I find I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardor of dispute, I make myself submit to my adversary’s force of reason, than I am pleased with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“Off I go, rummaging about in books for sayings which please me.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“The greater part of the world's troubles are due to questions of grammar.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“Why do people respect the package rather than the man?”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“No wind favors he who has no destined port.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“The thing I fear most is fear.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“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.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

“Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.”
― Michel de Montaigne, quote from The Complete Essays of Montaigne

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Popular quotes

“The mature response, however, is not to leave; it's to change -- ourselves.

Whenever marital dissatisfaction rears its head in my marriage -- as it does in virtually every marriage -- I simply check my focus. The times that I am happiest and most fulfilled in my marriage are the times when I am intent on drawing meaning and fulfillment from becoming a better husband rather than from demanding a "better" wife.

If you're a Christian, the reality is that, biblically speaking, you can't swap your spouse for someone else. But you can change yourself. And that change can bring the fulfillment that you mistakenly believe is found only by changing partners. In one sense, it's comical: Yes, we need a changed partner, but the partner that needs to change is not our spouse, it's us!

I don't know why this works. I don't know how you can be unsatisfied maritally, and then offer yourself to God to bring about change in your life and suddenly find yourself more satisfied with the same spouse. I don't why this works, only that it does work. It takes time, and by time I mean maybe years. But if your heart is driven by the desire to draw near to Jesus, you find joy by becoming like Jesus. You'll never find joy by doing something that offends Jesus -- such as instigating a divorce or an affair.”
― Gary L. Thomas, quote from Sacred Marriage: Celebrating Marriage as a Spiritual Discipline

“sistema El torturador es un funcionario. El dictador es un funcionario. Burócratas armados, que pierden su empleo si no cumplen con eficiencia su tarea. Eso, y nada más que eso. No son monstruos extraordinarios. No vamos a regalarles esa grandeza.”
― Eduardo Galeano, quote from Days and Nights of Love and War

“The man who waits for reality to write the truth inside his soul waits in vain.”
― Leonard Peikoff, quote from Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

“Kimsenin ıstırabı olması gerekenden fazla değildir.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from South of No North

“So we see, to play successfully the game of life, we must train the imaging faculty.”
― quote from The Game Of Life How To Play It

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

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