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There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.

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
Less
Family
States
Government
Vexation
Much
Managing
Private
Entire
State

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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.
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A good marriage ... is a sweet association in life: full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of useful and solid services and mutual obligations.
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I had rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory.
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A man must always study, but he must not always go to school: what a contemptible thing is an old abecedarian!
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In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books.
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Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are found and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing.
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It is an absolute perfection... to get the very most out of one's individuality.
Michel de Montaigne
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A man must either imitate the vicious or hate them.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is a human tendency to measure truth and error by our capacity.
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And I loathe people who find it harder to put up with a gown askew than with a soul askew and who judge a man by his bow, his bearing and his boots.
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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.
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All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty and good-nature
Michel de Montaigne
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Necessity is a violent school-mistress.
Michel de Montaigne
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For among other things he had been counseled to bring me to love knowledge and duty by my own choice, without forcing my will, and to educate my soul entirely through gentleness and freedom.
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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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The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.
Michel de Montaigne
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I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent. Such as are between both (which is the most common fashion), it is they that spoil all they will needs chew our meat for us and take upon them a law to judge, and by consequence to square and incline the story according to their fantasy.
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To say less of yourself than is true is stupidity, not modesty. To pay yourself less than you are worth is cowardice and pusillanimity.
Michel de Montaigne
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The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.
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I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more willfully obstinate.
Michel de Montaigne