Quote

I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.

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
Notion
Unresolved
Questions
Formless
Seek
Doubtful
Forward
Notions
Truth
Publish
School
Establish
Schools
Debate

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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We hold death, poverty, and grief for our principal enemies but this death, which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful things, who does not know that others call it the only secure harbor from the storm and tempests of life, the sovereign good of nature, the sole support of liberty, and the common and sudden remedy of all evils?
Michel de Montaigne
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'As a man who knows how to make his education into a rule of life not a means of showing off who can control himself and obey his own principles.' The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives.
Michel de Montaigne
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Whatever the Benefits of Fortune are , they yet require a Palate fit to relish and taste them 'Tis Fruition, and not Possession, that renders us Happy.
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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Others form man I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed, whom I should really make very different from whathe is if I had to fashion him over again. But now it is done.
Michel de Montaigne
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If people must be talking about me, I would have it to be truthfully and justly. I would willingly return from the next world to contradict any person who described me other than I was, although he did it to honour me.
Michel de Montaigne
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Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.
Michel de Montaigne
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This notion [skepticism] is more clearly understood by asking What do I know?
Michel de Montaigne
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Have you been able to think out and manage your own life? You have done the greatest task of all.... All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.
Michel de Montaigne
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The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles.
Michel de Montaigne
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Beauty is the true prerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that our sex, though naturally requiring another sort of feature, is never in its lustre but when puerile and beardless, confused and mixed with theirs.
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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Who is it that does not voluntarily exchange his health, his repose, and his very life for reputation and glory? The most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes current among us.
Michel de Montaigne
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Why dost thou complain of this world? It detains thee not thy own cowardice is the cause, if thou livest in pain.
Michel de Montaigne
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Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.
Michel de Montaigne
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I am much afraid that we shall have very greatly hastened the decline and ruin of the New World by our contagion, and that we willhave sold it our opinions and our arts very dear.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)
Michel de Montaigne
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Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.
Michel de Montaigne
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He loves little who loves by rule.
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