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The most fruitful and natural exercise for our minds is, in my opinion, conversation.
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
Mind
Fruitful
Minds
Conversation
Exercise
Opinion
Natural
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
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
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
Teach him a certain refinement in sorting out and selecting his arguments, with an affection for relevance and so for brevity. Above all let him be taught to throw down his arms and surrender to truth as soon as he perceives it, whether the truth is born at his rival's doing or within himself from some change in his ideas.
Michel de Montaigne
The plague of man is the opinion of knowledge. That is why ignorance is so recommended by our religion as a quality suitable to belief and obedience.
Michel de Montaigne
The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.
Michel de Montaigne
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
Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me--a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books.
Michel de Montaigne
Words repeated again have as another sound, so another sense.
Michel de Montaigne
It takes so much to be a king that he exists only as such. That extraneous glare that surrounds him hides him and conceals him from us our sight breaks and is dissipated by it being filled and arrested by this strong light.
Michel de Montaigne
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
Michel de Montaigne
If these Essays were worthy of being judged, it might fall out, in my opinion, that they would not find much favour, either with common and vulgar minds, or with uncommon and eminent ones: the former would not find enough in them, the latter would find too much they might manage to live somewhere in the middle region.
Michel de Montaigne
Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favorably and well in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life to alleviate the sense of them.
Michel de Montaigne
There is nothing of evil in life for him who rightly comprehends that death is no evil to know how to die delivers us from all subjection and constraint.
Michel de Montaigne
The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.
Michel de Montaigne
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
Michel de Montaigne
I do not portray the thing in itself. I portray the passage not a passing from one age to another, or, as the people put it, from seven years to seven years, but from day to day, from minute to minute.
Michel de Montaigne
When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing.
Michel de Montaigne
The wise man should withdraw his soul within, out of the crowd, and keep it in freedom and power to judge things freely but as for externals, he should wholly follow the accepted fashions and forms.
Michel de Montaigne
I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.
Michel de Montaigne
In order always to learn something from others (which is the finest school there can be), I observe in my travels this practice: I always steer those with whom I talk back to the things they know best.
Michel de Montaigne
