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I had rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory.

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
Ashamed
Fortune
Victory
Rather
Complain
Ill
Complaining

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
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The world always looks straights ahead as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others...they always go forward as for me, I roll about in myself.
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A woman is no sooner ours than we are no longer hers.
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Every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the place where he chanced to be.
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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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To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value, is pusillanimity and cowardice.
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~The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them ~
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It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness.
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Friendship is the highest degree of perfection in society.
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The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear.
Michel de Montaigne
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He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it.
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The shortest way to arrive at glory should be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. And the virtue of Alexander appears to me with much less vigor in his theater than that of Socrates in his mean and obscure. I can easily conceive Socrates in the place of Alexander, but Alexander in that of Socrates I cannot.
Michel de Montaigne
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He loves little who loves by rule.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every man has within himself the entire human condition
Michel de Montaigne
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The most certain sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.
Michel de Montaigne
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Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.
Michel de Montaigne
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I do not correct my first imaginings by my second--well, yes, perhaps a word or so, but only to vary, not to delete. I want to represent the course of my humors and I want people to see each part at its birth.
Michel de Montaigne
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Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself.
Michel de Montaigne
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A person is bound to lose when he talks about himself if he belittles himself, he is believed if he praises himself, he isn't believed.
Michel de Montaigne
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The entire lower world was created in the likeness of the higher world. All that exists in the higher world appears like an image in this lower world yet all this is but One.
Michel de Montaigne