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Reason has so many forms that we do not know which to choose-Experiment has no fewer.

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
Form
Reason
Many
Experiment
Fewer
Experiments
Forms
Choose
Science

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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We find ourselves more taken with the running up and down, the games, and puerile simplicities of our children, than we do, afterward, with their most complete actions as if we had loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men.
Michel de Montaigne
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In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.
Michel de Montaigne
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If your doctor does not think it good for you to sleep, to drink wine, or to eat of a particular dish, do not worry I will find you another who will not agree with him.
Michel de Montaigne
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Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.
Michel de Montaigne
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We should be similarly wary of accepting common opinions we should judge them by the ways of reason not by popular vote.
Michel de Montaigne
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Saying is one thing and doing is another
Michel de Montaigne
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Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.
Michel de Montaigne
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The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
Michel de Montaigne
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I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.
Michel de Montaigne
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If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.
Michel de Montaigne
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Any time and any place can be used to study: his room, a garden, is table, his bed when alone or in company morning and evening. His chief study will be Philosophy, that Former of good judgement and character who is privileged to be concerned with everything.
Michel de Montaigne
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When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
Michel de Montaigne
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Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.
Michel de Montaigne
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Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget.
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 value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them ~
Michel de Montaigne
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It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
Michel de Montaigne
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To die is not to play a part in society it is the act of a single person. Let us live and laugh among our friends let us die and sulk among strangers.
Michel de Montaigne
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The great and glorious masterpiece of men is to live to the point. All other things-to reign, to hoard, to build-are, at most, but inconsiderable props and appendages.
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