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Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them if they will not apply themselves to me.

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
Events
Able
Govern
Apply
Temptation
Expectations

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.
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There is no so wretched and coarse a soul wherein some particular faculty is not seen to shine.
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It is the rule of rules, and the general law of all laws, that every person should observe those of the place where he is.
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Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass?
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To know much is often the cause of doubting more.
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It is fear that I stand most in fear of, in sharpness it exceeds every other feeling.
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It is a rare life that remains orderly even in private.
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I see this evident, that we willingly accord to piety only the services that flatter our passions.
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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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Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive and little instructed, make good Christians.
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The height and value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise so far from difficulty, that boys, as well as men, and the innocent as well as the subtle, may make it their own and it is by order and good conduct, and not by force, that it is to be acquired.
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Order a purge for your brain, it will there be much better employed than upon your stomach.
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I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head.
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Every day I hear stupid people say things that are not stupid.
Michel de Montaigne
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Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope.
Michel de Montaigne
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A man must not always tell all, for that be folly but what a man says should be what he thinks.
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I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
Michel de Montaigne
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I love a friendship that flatters itself in the sharpness and vigor of its communications.
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I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.
Michel de Montaigne
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And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets?
Michel de Montaigne