“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.”
—-Michel de Montaigne.
Michel De Montaigne
Michel De Montaigne: Noise and command
“He who establishes his argument by noise and command, shows that his reason is weak.”
—Michel De Montaigne.
Michel de Montaigne: Saying silly things
“No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.”
– Michel de Montaigne.
Michel de Montaigne: Stark mad
“Man is certainly stark mad: he cannot make a flea, yet he makes gods by the dozens.”
—Michel de Montaigne, essayist (28 Feb 1533-1592).
Michel de Montaigne: Pleasures and pains
“I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided if greater pains be the consequence, and pains to be coveted that will terminate in greater pleasures.” -Michel de Montaigne.
Michel De Montaigne: Firm footing
“If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions; but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.” -Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne: Unceasingly
“We, and our judgment, and all mortal things go on flowing and rolling unceasingly. Thus nothing certain can be established about one thing by another, both the judging and the judged being in continual change and motion.” —Michel de Montaigne.
Michel de Montaigne: Memory and lying
“He who has not a good memory should never take upon himself the trade of lying.”
—Michel de Montaigne.
Michel de Montaigne: Virtue
“The confidence in another man’s virtue is no light evidence of a man’s own, and God willingly favors such a confidence. ”

Michel de Montaigne: Belief

Michel de Montaigne wrote of his condition that, “I am at grips with the worst of all maladies, the most sudden, the most painful, the most mortal and the most irremediable. I have already experienced five or six very long and painful bouts of it.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known. –Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)

Michel de Montaigne: Firm belief
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“I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of. ”
—Michel De Montaigne
Michel De Montaigne: He who fears
“He who fears will suffer, he already suffers from his fear. ”
—Michel De Montaigne.
Michel de Montaigne: Custom, not law

Deutsch: Porträt de Michel de Montaignes English: Portrait of Michel de Montaigne (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom. ”
Michel De Montaigne
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Michel de Montaigne: 'cos it was me, 'im meself

Painting by Thomas de Leu (Franco-Flemish painter and engraver, 1560–1612, active 1580-1610). An engraving of this painting was published in the first edition of Montaigne’s Essais, 1617. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself. ”
—Michel de Montaigne.
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Michel de Montaigne: Milesian wench
I feel grateful to the Milesian wench who, seeing the philosopher Thales continually spending his time in contemplation of the heavenly vault and always keeping his eyes raised upward, put something in his way to make him stumble, to warn him that it would be time to amuse his thoughts with things in the cloud when he had seen to those at his feet. Indeed she gave him or her good counsel, to look rather to himself than to the sky.
—Michel de Montaigne.
Michel de Montaigne: Firm belief
Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
Michel de Montaigne: Own legs, own bottom

Image via Wikipedia
No matter that we may mount on stilts, we still must walk on our own legs. And on the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom. –Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
Michel de Montaigne: Differences

Image via Wikipedia
There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others. –Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
Michel de Montaigne: Cast in the same mold
The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold. The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
Michel de Montaigne: Truth
I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older. –Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
Michel de Montaigne: Talking nonsense

Cover of Montaigne: Complete Essays
No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the mistake is to do it solemnly.
– Michel De Montaigne
