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All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.

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
Advice
Speak
Nothing
Way
Boldly
Discourse
Dues
Believed
Humility

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.
Michel de Montaigne
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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.
Michel de Montaigne
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Tortures are a dangerous invention, and seem to be a test of endurance rather than of truth.
Michel de Montaigne
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After mature deliberation of counsel, the good Queen to establish a rule and immutable example unto all posterity, for the moderation and required modesty in a lawful marriage, ordained the number of six times a day as a lawful, necessary and competent limit.
Michel de Montaigne
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Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.
Michel de Montaigne
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All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
Michel de Montaigne
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Nobody is exempt from saying stupid things, the harm is to do it presumptuously.
Michel de Montaigne
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Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it.
Michel de Montaigne
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If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was I.
Michel de Montaigne
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I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.
Michel de Montaigne
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Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope, that in a mortal subject, and in a moment, makes nothing of usurping infinity, immensity, eternity, and of supplying its masters indigence, at its pleasure, with all things he can imagine or desire!
Michel de Montaigne
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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
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Learning must not only lodge with us: we must marry her.
Michel de Montaigne
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To philosophize is nothing else than to prepare oneself for death.
Michel de Montaigne
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If I were of the trade, I should naturalize art as much as they artialize nature.
Michel de Montaigne
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If health and a fair day smile upon me, I am a very good fellow if a corn trouble my toe, I am sullen, out of humor, and inaccessible.
Michel de Montaigne
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The common notions that we find in credit around us and infused into our souls by our fathers' seed, these seem to be the universal and natural ones. Whence it comes to pass that what is off the hinges of custom, people believe to be off the hinges of reason.
Michel de Montaigne
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My errors are by now natural and incorrigible but the good that worthy men do the public by making themselves imitable, I shall perhaps do by making myself evitable.
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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Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry the progress, ignorance the end.
Michel de Montaigne