Michel de Montaigne

"Of all the blessings which man can enjoy in this life, none surpasses the privilege of friendship."

"To take offense is to show that you have been offended."

"The strength of our desire for something is the measure of our distance from possessing it."

"The greatest learning is that which teaches us how to unlearn."

"He who is afraid of suffering is already suffering from his fear."

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

"We should be much more careful about the selection of our reading than the selection of our company."

"A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears."

"There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge."

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that very existence is an act of rebellion."

"It is not death that a man should fear, but never beginning to live."

"Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security."

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."

"The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable."

"One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to prevent one's being driven into the street, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

"A man does not complain of his neighbors stealing his apples, but of his not stealing enough."

"Cowardice and courage are not matters of absence or presence of fear, but of how we act in the face of it."

"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions."

"There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; their most universal quality is diversity."

"One should play fair with the cards that life deals you, even if the deck is stacked."

"In friendship, care must be taken not to love everything that appears lovely lest you lose yourself in another's appetites."

"The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure."

"Custom is a violent and treacherous mistress."

"A teacher's job is not to dispense information but to provoke curiosity."

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places."

"What greater thing is there for two human souls to feel that they are joined for life?"

"Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head."

"To be everywhere is to be nowhere."

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

"The greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown."