Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

"I quote others only in order the better to express myself."

"We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there."

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

"I quote others only in order the better to express myself."

"Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement."

"Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own."

"If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I."

"There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent."

"We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there."

"Why do people respect the package rather than the man?"

"[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out."

"Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know."

"It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance."

"Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens."

"Every other knowledge is harmful to him who does not have knowledge of goodness."

"Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own."