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Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.

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
Belief
Understand
Believe
Men
Libertarianism
Libertarian
Liberty
Least

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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There is a certain amount of purpose, acquiescence, and satisfaction in nursing one's melancholy.
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'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
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I never met a man who thought his thinking was faulty.
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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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We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled.
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Judgement holds in me a magisterial seat, at least it carefully tries to. It lets my feelings go their way, both hatred and friendship, even the friendship I bear myself, without being changed and corrupted by them.
Michel de Montaigne
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Virtue can have naught to do with ease. . . . It craves a steep and thorny path.
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A volunteer, you assign yourself specific roles and risks according to your judgement of their brilliance and importance, and you see when life itself may be justifiably devoted to them.
Michel de Montaigne
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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 study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.
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Everyone gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.
Michel de Montaigne
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We do not marry for ourselves, whatever we say we marry just as much or more for our posterity, for our family. The practice and benefit of marriage concerns our race very far beyond us.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience…These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us it is the only payment that can never fail. “On Repentance
Michel de Montaigne
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I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and reason, as the worst of all the vices. But then I am so soft in this that I cannot seea chicken's neck wrung without distress, and cannot bear to hear the squealing of a hare between the teeth of my hounds.
Michel de Montaigne
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We owe subjection and obedience to all our kings, whether good or bad, alike, for that has respect unto their office but as to esteem and affection, these are only due to their virtue.
Michel de Montaigne
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The human face is a weak guarantee yet it deserves some consideration. And if I had to whip the wicked, I would do so more severely to those who belied and betrayed the promises that nature had implanted on their brows I would punish malice more harshly when it was hidden under a kindly appearance.
Michel de Montaigne
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I have gathered a posy of other men’s flowers and only the thread that bonds them is my own.
Michel de Montaigne
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If you don't know how to die, don't worry Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you don't bother your head about it.
Michel de Montaigne
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Is it not enough to make me come back to life out of spite, to have someone who spat in my face while I existed come and rub my feet when I am beginning to exist no longer?
Michel de Montaigne
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Virtue shuns ease as a companion. It demands a rough and thorny path.
Michel de Montaigne