Michel de Montaigne

"No desire is more natural than the desire to understand."

"Every man has within himself the whole condition of humanity."

"The most beautiful things are those that suggest infinity."

"Virtue needs obstacles to be put in practice."

"Loyalty is the holiest good in the human heart."

"I prefer satire to praise."

"The true art of deception is not to leave any trace of your intention."

"A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband."

"Human life is a perpetual series of contradictions."

"Nature does nothing in vain."

"The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself."

"I speak the truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare."

"Cowardice is the mother of cruelty."

"We should be much more careful about the integrity of our thoughts than about our words."

"Fortune and defeat are but two schoolmasters by which we learn."

"The man who fears suffering is already suffering from his fear."

"We lose ourselves in pursuit of things that do not truly satisfy us."

"Ambition and avarice are the twin diseases of the soul."

"The laws of conscience, which we say nature engrave in our hearts, change with the winds of opinion."

"A man does not die of love or his liver or even of despair; he dies of solitude."

"Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable."

"We should not so much value what we have been taught as to whom we have been taught."

"To practice philosophy is to learn how to die."

"There is no conversation more boring than the one devoted entirely to praise of the speaker."

"I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself."

"The most fruitful and natural exercise of our minds is conversation."

"Every man bears the whole stamped image of human condition."

"Custom is a violent and treacherous mistress."

"There is as much difference between me and myself as between me and others."

"The truly free man is he who can refuse a king."