There is no more expensive thing than a free gift.

Montaigne

Montaigne

Profession: Philosopher
Nationality: French


There is no more expensive thing than a free gift. Montaigne

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A noble heart should not belie its thoughts; it wants to reveal itself even to its inmost depths. There everything is good, at least everything is human.

Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.

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

I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.

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.

Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.

It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.

In truth, knowledge is a great and very useful quality; those who despise it give evidence enough of their stupidity. Yet I do not set its value at that extreme measure that some attribute to it, such as the philosopher Herillus, who find in it the sovereign good and think it has the power to make us wise and happy.

The way of truth is one and artless: the way of private gain and success in such affairs as we are entrusted with is double, uneven and fortuitous.

Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.

Can anything be imagined so ridiculous, that this miserable and wretched creature [man], who is not so much as master of himself, but subject to the injuries of all things, should call himself master and emperor of the world, of which he has not power to know the least part, much less to command the whole?

I will follow the right side even to the fire but excluding the fire if I can.

I know nothing about education except this: that the greatest and the most important difficulty known to human learning seems to lie in that area which treats how to bring up children and how to educate them.

Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.