Michel de Montaigne

"Fear betrays unworthy souls."

"I would find myself in total disagreement with all men."

"Wealth is the test of a man's character."

"Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition."

"Books are a quieter and yet more enduring remedy for all disorders than any other cure."

"Even on the most exalted throne in the world, we are still sitting on our own bottom."

"If you don't know how to die, why worry yourself about living?"

"Virtue is a vigorous thing."

"He who would teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live."

"As our life is short, so it behooves us to make it agreeable to ourselves and to others."

"War is a violent thing, and that which is violent cannot endure."

"The true art of living is to have a great appreciation of all life."

"We make a ladder for ourselves out of our vices if we spurn them as steps."

"To be everywhere is to be nowhere."

"The laws of conscience, which we say nature engrafts in us, are in reality but the laws of custom."

"Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known."

"There is nothing worse than accustoming the people to lies."

"Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows."

"The greatest monarch is he who finds the most pleasure in small things."

"I have never been ashamed of sensible things."

"We are dying every moment; life itself is but a perpetual death."

"Riches are for spending, not hoarding."

"In the moment when we triumph, we are almost always diminishing our rivals."

"The human animal is a strange creature and inconsistent in behavior."

"True learning is a yearning to know; true ignorance is a complacent acceptance of ignorance."

"Life would be tedious if we always acted with perfect propriety."

"The world bores me; I'm beginning to fade away from the world."

"When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep."

"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men."

"Whoever is afraid of suffering is already suffering from his fear."