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I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.

Michel de Montaigne

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Michel de Montaigne
Age: 59 †
Born: 1533
Born: February 28
Died: 1592
Died: September 13
Autobiographer
Essayist
French Moralist
Jurist
Philosopher
Poet Lawyer
Politician
Translator
Writer
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Miquèu Eiquèm de Montanha
Miqueu Eiquem de Montanha
Fleeing
Search
Discovery
Oneself
Wells
Well

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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The clatter of arms drowns out the voice of law.
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The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use some men have lived long, and lived little attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough.
Michel de Montaigne
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Judgement holds in me a magisterial seat, at least it carefully tries to. It lets my feelings go their way, both hatred and friendship, even the friendship I bear myself, without being changed and corrupted by them.
Michel de Montaigne
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He that is a friend to himself, know he is a friend to all.
Michel de Montaigne
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The world is but a perpetual see-saw.
Michel de Montaigne
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Ambition is not a vice of little people.
Michel de Montaigne
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A young man ought to cross his own rules, to awake his vigor, and to keep it from growing faint and rusty. And there is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is carried on by rule and discipline.
Michel de Montaigne
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I admire the assurance and confidence everyone has in himself, whereas there is hardly anything I am sure I know or that I dare give my word I can do.
Michel de Montaigne
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In nine lifetimes, you'll never know as much about your cat as your cat knows about you.
Michel de Montaigne
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I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every man has within himself the entire human condition
Michel de Montaigne
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Who is only good that others may know it, and that he may be the better esteemed when 'tis known, who will do well but upon condition that his virtue may be known to men, is one from whom much service is not to be expected.
Michel de Montaigne
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Princes give mee sufficiently, if they take nothing from me, and doe me much good, if they doe me no hurt: it is all I require of them.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience…These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us it is the only payment that can never fail. “On Repentance
Michel de Montaigne
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Nature has with a Motherly Tenderness observed this, that the Action she has enjoyned us for our Necessity should be also pleasant to us, and invites us to them, not only by Reason, but also by Appetite: and ’tis Injustice to infringe her Laws.
Michel de Montaigne
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Those who make a practice of comparing human actions are never so perplexed as when they try to see them as a whole and in the same light for they commonly contradict each other so strangely that it seems impossible that they have come from the same shop.
Michel de Montaigne
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Examples teach us that in military affairs, and all others of a like nature, study is apt to enervate and relax the courage of man, rather than to give strength and energy to the mind.
Michel de Montaigne
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Ambition is, of all other, the most contrary humor to solitude and glory and repose are so inconsistent that they cannot possibly inhabit one and the same place and for so much as I understand, those have only their arms and legs disengaged from the crowd, their mind and intention remain engaged behind more than ever.
Michel de Montaigne
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Learning is a good medicine: but no medicine is powerful enough to preserve itself from taint and corruption independently of defects in the jar that it is kept in. One man sees clearly but does not see straight: consequently he sees what is good but fails to follow it he sees knowledge and does not use it.
Michel de Montaigne
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I honor most those to whom I show least honor and where my soul moves with great alacrity, I forget the proper steps of ceremony.
Michel de Montaigne