Montaigne

This solitude, surrounded by inscriptions, has a measure of the pompous and affected about it. One has the impression that Montaigne sought to impose rigidly on himself a discipline, the discipline of solitude. Since, unlike a hermit, he cannot abide any religious rules, he has to coerce himself into standing firm. Perhaps he is not aware, but it i

“La plus grande chose du monde c’est de savoir être à soi.”

Books are, I find, the best provisions a man can take with him on life’s journey.

Only the man who remains free from all and everything augments and sustains freedom on this earth.

For you cannot know the world by just navel-gazing. This is why he reads history and studies philosophy: not to draw lessons and precepts, but to understand how other men have acted in the past, so that he can compare his own situation with theirs.

“As when plants suffocate for too much moisture, and lamps from too much oil, so the action of the spirit is suffocated by an overload of study and matter.” Such knowledge is a burden on the mind, not an action of the soul: “To know by heart is not to know, it is to keep what they have given you and store it in your memory.”

The true essence of freedom is that it can never restrict the freedom of another.

He was at every moment disposed to lend, never to give. Always, whatever his mode of living, he kept for himself alone the most authentic and most subtle element of his being. He left the rest to prattle on, to move with the herd, to get borne aloft, to preach and parade; he left the world to follow its chaotic crazed paths and only concerned himse

Let the young man read and sift and verify, not just accept the authority in good faith. A rich variety of opinions must be presented to him. He will make his choice, and if he cannot, then he will remain in doubt. He who sheep-like follows another follows nothing. He discovers nothing, because he seeks nothing.