“When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep; yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts drift to far-off matters for some part of the time for some other part I lead them back again to the walk, the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, to myself.”

“Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head”

“[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.”

“Every movement reveals us.”

“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself”

“There is no knowledge so hard to acquire as the knowledge of how to live this life well and naturally.”

“I know that the arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of the world to the other”

“No-one is exempt from speaking nonsense – the only misfortune is to do it solemnly.”

“I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself.”

“Why do people respect the package rather than the man?”

“No wind favors he who has no destined port.”

“No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.”

“There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others.”

“There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)”

“Kings and philosophers shit—and so do ladies.”

“Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures.”

“If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.”

“Saying is one thing and doing is another”

“We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.”

“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.”

“I want us to be doing things, prolonging life's duties as much as we can. I want death to find me planting my cabbages, neither worrying about it nor the unfinished gardening.”

“The thing I fear most is fear.”

“I enjoy books as misers enjoy treasures, because I know I can enjoy them whenever I please.”

“Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.”

“Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own.”

“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.”

“Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.”

“Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own.”

“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.”

“So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination... And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation.”

“Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.”

“Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.”

“Behold the hands, how they promise, conjure, appeal, menace, pray, supplicate, refuse, beckon, interrogate, admire, confess, cringe, instruct, command, mock and what not besides, with a variation and multiplication of variation which makes the tongue envious.”

“Kings and philosophers defecate, and so do ladies.”

“When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing.”

“The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make to them; a man may live long, yet get little from life. Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will - Montaigne, Essays”

“The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.”

“I had rather fashion my mind than furnish it.”

“If I am pressed to say why I loved him, I feel it can only be explained by replying: 'Because it was he; because it was me.”

“There are no truths, only moments of claryty passing for answers.”

“To distract myself from tiresome thoughts, I have only to resort to books; they easily draw my mind to themselves and away from other things.”

“Pride and curiosity are the two scourges of our souls. The latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved and undecided.”

“The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live with purpose.”

“a good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.”

“There is no more expensive thing than a free gift.”

“Let every foot have its own shoe.”

“One must be a little foolish if one does not want to be even more stupid.”

“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.”

“Experience has further taught me this, that we ruin ourselves by impatience.”

“Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness.”