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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
Well
Fleeing
Search
Discovery
Oneself
Wells

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others.
Michel de Montaigne
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I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
Michel de Montaigne
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I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and reason, as the worst of all the vices. But then I am so soft in this that I cannot seea chicken's neck wrung without distress, and cannot bear to hear the squealing of a hare between the teeth of my hounds.
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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If love and ambition should be in equal balance, and come to jostle with equal force, I make no doubt but that the last would win the prize.
Michel de Montaigne
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No spiritual mind remains within itself it is always aspiring and going beyond its own strength.
Michel de Montaigne
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Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass?
Michel de Montaigne
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Every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the place where he chanced to be.
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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Since philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in it?
Michel de Montaigne
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I may indeed very well happen to contradict myself but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict.
Michel de Montaigne
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~The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them ~
Michel de Montaigne
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It is the part of cowardice, not of courage, to go and crouch in a hole under a massive tomb, to avoid the blows of fortune.
Michel de Montaigne
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Difficulty is a coin the learned make use of like jugglers, to conceal the inanity of their art.
Michel de Montaigne
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In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word.
Michel de Montaigne
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I see several animals that live so entire and perfect a life, some without sight, others without hearing: who knows whether to us also one, two, or three, or many other senses, may not be wanting?
Michel de Montaigne
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Age imprints more wrinkles a in the mind, than it does in the face, and souls are never, or very rarely seen, that in growing old do not smell sour and musty. Man moves all together, both towards his perfection and decay.
Michel de Montaigne
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Men are tormented by the opinions they have of things, and not the things themselves.
Michel de Montaigne
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Marriage can be compared to a cage: birds outside it despair to enter, and birds within, to escape.
Michel de Montaigne
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If not for that of conscience, yet at least for ambition's sake, let us reject ambition, let us disdain that thirst of honor and renown, so low and mendicant that it makes us beg it of all sorts of people.
Michel de Montaigne