Montaigne

• He is only a philosopher in the manner of Socrates, whom he revered above all others because he left behind no dogma, no teachings, no law, no system, only an example: the man who seeks himself in all and who seeks all in himself.

“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.”

Nothing can lower or raise your self from outside; that which remains inwardly free and sincere easily defeats the strongest pressure from the exterior.

“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.

One must not allow oneself to be impelled by a sense of duty, overriding passion or naked ambition, to go beyond one’s natural capacity; one should endlessly weigh the genuine value of things and not overestimate them; one should stop when the enjoyment stops. One should safeguard a clear-sighted mind, not become confined but always remain free.

The public is a mirror: each man discovers there another face when he knows he is being observed.

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

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