Quote

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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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
Time
Also
Memory
Bearing
Soul
Waste
Include
Live
Beyond
Commerce
Book
Memories
Educational
Mean
Study
Former
Great
Books
Souls
Years
History
Price
Principally
Men
Means
Fruit
Frequent

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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I am much afraid that we shall have very greatly hastened the decline and ruin of the New World by our contagion, and that we willhave sold it our opinions and our arts very dear.
Michel de Montaigne
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I do not correct my first imaginings by my second--well, yes, perhaps a word or so, but only to vary, not to delete. I want to represent the course of my humors and I want people to see each part at its birth.
Michel de Montaigne
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Saying is one thing and doing is another
Michel de Montaigne
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Nor is it enough to toughen up his soul you must also toughen up his muscles.
Michel de Montaigne
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I consider it equal injustice to set our heart against natural pleasures and to set our heart too much on them. We should neither pursue them, nor flee them we should accept them.
Michel de Montaigne
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I go out of my way, but rather by license than carelessness.... It is the inattentive reader who loses my subject, not I. Some word about it will always be found off in a corner, which will not fail to be sufficient, though it takes little room.
Michel de Montaigne
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... whoever believes anything esteems that it is a work of charity to persuade another of it.
Michel de Montaigne
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He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy.
Michel de Montaigne
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Speaking is half his that speaks, and half his that hears.
Michel de Montaigne
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To how many blockheads of my time has a cold and taciturn demeanor procured the credit of prudence and capacity!
Michel de Montaigne
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There never were, in the world, two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains the most universal quality is diversity.
Michel de Montaigne
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Dreams are faithful interpreters of our inclinations but there is art required to sort and understand them.
Michel de Montaigne
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I know that the arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of the world to the other
Michel de Montaigne
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Every man has within himself the entire human condition
Michel de Montaigne
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There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others.
Michel de Montaigne
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I find no quality so easy for a man to counterfeit as devotion, though his life and manner are not conformable to it the essence of it is abstruse and occult, but the appearances easy and showy.
Michel de Montaigne
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Fortune does us neither good nor hurt she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition.
Michel de Montaigne
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Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.
Michel de Montaigne
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The day of your birth leads you to death as well as to life.
Michel de Montaigne