Michel de Montaigne Quotes

A man can do what he ought to do; and when he says he cannot, it is because he will not.

I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me.

One does what one can, not what one cannot.

We all have to take responsibility for what we say and do.

Whatever ought to be, can be.

To some degree. I know I couldn't do it anymore.

Our friends must not expect us to do things we cannot do.

Whoever can, should.

What I say is the only thing I can control.

I know what I can do and what I can't.

There are roles that I can't do.

I can't control other people, what their beliefs are.

My mother understood human nature better and never chided. She knew that a man cannot be saved from his own foolishness or vice by someone else's efforts or protests, but only by the use of his own will.

It is vain to ask of the gods what man is capable of supplying for himself.

Duty is a better guide than stars or statutes.

The mind must have for ballast the clear conception of duty, if it is not to fluctuate between levity and despair.

Let every man consider virtue as what devolves on himself. He may not yield the performance of it even to his teacher.

With freedom goes responsibility, a responsibility that can only be met by the individual himself.

Take subject matter equal to your powers, and ponder long, what your shoulders cannot bear, and what they can.

You are not in charge of the universe; you are in charge of yourself.

One is not worthy to have what one, through weakness, lets be taken from him; one is not worthy of it because one is not capable of it.

Because your own strength is unequal to a task, do not assume it is beyond the powers of man.

We have power over nothing except our will.

Astrology is a fact, in most instances. But astrological aspects are but signs, symbols. No influence is of greater value or of greater help than the will of an individual.... Do not attempt to be guided by, but use the astrological influences as the means to meet or to overcome the faults and failures, or to minimize the faults and to magnify the virtues in self.