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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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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
Knowledge
Natural
Desire
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More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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There is nothing which so poisons princes as flattery, nor anything whereby wicked men more easily obtain credit and favor with them.
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Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.
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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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The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.
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To understand via the heart is not to understand.
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Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry the progress, ignorance the end.
Michel de Montaigne
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Our skin is provided as adequately as theirs with endurance against the assaults of the weather: witness so many nations who have not yet tried the use of any clothes. Our ancient Gauls wore hardly any clothes nor do the Irish, our neighbors, under so cold a sky.
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The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
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
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The pleasantest things in the world are pleasant thoughts, and the great art of life is to have as many of them as possible.
Michel de Montaigne
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Fortune does us neither good nor hurt she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition.
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No two men ever judged alike of the same thing, and it is impossible to find two opinions exactly similar, not only in different men but in the same men at different times.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance.
Michel de Montaigne
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For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.
Michel de Montaigne
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The most unhappy and frail creatures are men and yet they are the proudest.
Michel de Montaigne
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Our wisdom and deliberation for the most part follow the lead of chance.
Michel de Montaigne
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I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.
Michel de Montaigne
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Take care that old age does not wrinkle your spirit even more than your face.
Michel de Montaigne
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Persons of mean understandings, not so inquisitive, nor so well instructed, are made good Christians, and by reverence and obedience, implicity believe, and abide by their belief.
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