Michel de Montaigne Quotes

Some smart man once said that on the most exalted throne in the world, we are seated on nothing but our own arse.

The humblest is the peer of the most powerful.

Although the Senate is much given to admiring in its members a superiority less obvious or quite invisible to outsiders, one Senator seldom proclaims his own inferiority to another, and still more seldom likes to be told of it.

On the most exalted throne in the world, we are still seated on nothing but our arse.

A Plowman on his knees is higher than a Gentleman on his legs.

Humor is a reminder that no matter how high the throne one sits on, one sits on one's bottom.

A man is a man, on a throne or in a pigsty.

If thou hast no inferiors, have patience awhile, and thou shalt have no superiors. The grave requires no marshal.

Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.

Don't flatter the rich, or appear to willing before the great.

I was specifically referring to the regular everyday people that you come across on your come up. You never know if that intern that you disrespected might end up being the CEO of the company one day, you honestly never know who's who. It's easy to treat the stars and the executives with respect but how do you treat the security guards or the waiter that serves your food? You may have to cross that bridge later.

No piled-up wealth, no social station, no throne, reaches as high as that spiritual plane upon which every human being stands by virtue of his humanity.

When my mouth shall be filled with dust, and the worm shall feed, and feed sweetly upon me, when the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction if the poorest alive tread upon him, nor the poorest receive any contentment in being made equal to princes, for they shall be equal but in dust.

None is borne Master.

If the aristocrat is only valid in fashionable circles, and not with truckmen, he will never be a leader in fashion; and if the man of the people cannot speak on equal terms with the gentleman, so that the gentleman shall perceive that he is already really of his own order, he is not to be feared.

I've learned much, Father, and this above all: that no station in life is above any other, if it's occupied by someone with a good heart.

The greatest monarch on the proudest throne is obliged to sit upon his own arse.

On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.

The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors.

People are threatened by me. Rich white, rich blacks, it doesn't matter.

The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account.

One of the great things about Parkinson's, in a superficial way, is it relieved me of vanity. I don't worry about what I look like, because it's literally out of my hands. But on a deeper level, it gives you a real humility, because you have to deal every day with the fact that you compromise.

Men hate the haughty of heart who will not be the friend of every man.

In America, everybody is, but some are more than others.