The Turtle House

Monday, 31 March 2014

Quotes from the very lovely man, Michel de Montaigne

I c

onsider myself an average man, except in the fact that I consider myself an average man.

Nature should have been pleased to have made this age miserable, without making it also ridiculous.

Socrates thought and so do I that the wisest theory about the gods is no theory at all.

There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.

True it is that she who escapeth safe and unpolluted from out the school of freedom, giveth more confidence of herself than she who come

sound out of the school of severity and restraint.

Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. My advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.

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.

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.

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

All the fame you should look for in life is to have lived it quietly.

One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us, and whereto our passions transport us; but those which by long habits are rooted in a strong and powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.

It is not the want, but rather abundance that creates avarice.