Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
God defend me from being an honest man according to the description which every day I see made by each man to his own glorification
There never were, in the world, two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.
This idea is more surely understood by interrogation; WHAT DO I KNOW? which I bear as my motto with the emblem of a pair of scales.
The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write.
Every period of life has its peculiar prejudices; whoever saw old age, that did not applaud the past, and condemn the present times?
It costs an unreasonable woman no more to pass over one reason than another; they cherish themselves most where they are most wrong.
We must reserve a back shop all our own entirely free, in which to establish our real liberty and our principal retreat and solitude.
When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; his accusations of himself are always believed; his praises never.
If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.
There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.
In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge; of judgement and virtue, little news.
I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have.
Our speech has its weaknesses and its defects, like all the rest. Most of the occasions for the troubles of the world are grammatical.
I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.
If faces were not alike, we could not distinguish men from beasts; if they were not different, we could not tell one man from another.
Authors communicate with the people by some special extrinsic mark; I am the first to do so by my entire being, as Michel de Montaigne.
Princes give mee sufficiently, if they take nothing from me, and doe me much good, if they doe me no hurt: it is all I require of them.
It is indeed the boundary of life, beyond which we are not to pass; which the law of nature has pitched for a limit not to be exceeded.
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.
If health and a fair day smile upon me, I am a very good fellow; if a corn trouble my toe, I am sullen, out of humor, and inaccessible.
To say less of yourself than is true is stupidity, not modesty. To pay yourself less than you are worth is cowardice and pusillanimity.
The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little.
O human creature,you are the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and all in all, the fool of the farce.
For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.
Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate.
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.
A person is bound to lose when he talks about himself; if he belittles himself, he is believed; if he praises himself, he isn't believed.
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.
Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again.
Truly it is reasonable to make a great distinction between the faults that come from our weakness and those that come from our wickedness.
Glory consists of two parts: the one in setting too great a value upon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others.
There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
The first distinction among men, and the first consideration that gave one precedence over another, was doubtless the advantage of beauty.
Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.
Not only does the wind of accidents stir me according to its blowing, but I am also stirred and troubled by the instability of my attitude.
There is not one of us that would not be worse than kings, if so continually corrupted as they are with a sort of vermin called flatterers.
And if nobody reads me, shall I have wasted my time, when I have beguiled so many idle hours with such pleasant and profitable reflections?
The most regular and most perfect soul in the world has but too much to do to keep itself upright from being overthrown by its own weakness.
Satiety comes of too frequent repetition and he who will not give himself leisure to be thirsty can never find the true pleasure of drinking
No man dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours, than that which was before your birth, and concerneth you no more.
If love and ambition should be in equal balance, and come to jostle with equal force, I make no doubt but that the last would win the prize.
The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles.
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.
To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct.
Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet - the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.
Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant.
In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection; otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books.
Oh, a friend! How true is that old saying, that the enjoyment of one is sweeter and more necessary than that of the elements of water and fire!
To make judgements about great and lofty things, a soul of the same stature is needed; otherwise we ascribe to them that vice which is our own.
Man (in good earnest) is a marvellous vain, fickle, and unstable subject, and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment.