Michel De Montaigne: Other

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

“Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is, like grace and beauty in the body, which charm at first sight, and lead on to further intimacy and friendship, opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.”

“Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.”

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

“I know that the arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of the world to the other”

“There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.”

“Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures.”

“To distract myself from tiresome thoughts, I have only to resort to books; they easily draw my mind to themselves and away from other things.”

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

“It is more of a job to interpret the interpretations than to interpret the things, and there are more books about books than about any other subject: we do nothing but write glosses about each other.”

“To which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who confers a benefit on any one loves him better than he is beloved by him again.”

“Nature forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, not to seem.”

“I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.”

“It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.”

“Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.”

“I have gathered a posy of other men’s flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine own.”

“Some impose upon the world that they believe that which they do not; others, more in number, make themselves believe that they believe, not being able to penetrate into what it is to believe.”

“We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.”

“For my own part, I may desire in general to be other than I am; I may condemn and dislike my whole form, and beg of Almighty God for an entire reformation, and that He will please to pardon my natural infirmity: but I ought not to call this repentance, methinks, no more than the being dissatisfied that I am not an angel or Cato. My actions are regular, and conformable to what I am and to my condition; I can do no better; and repentance does not properly touch things that are not in our power; sorrow does.. I imagine an infinite number of natures more elevated and regular than mine; and yet I do not for all that improve my faculties, no more than my arm or will grow more strong and vigorous for conceiving those of another to be so.”