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'As a man who knows how to make his education into a rule of life not a means of showing off who can control himself and obey his own principles.' The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives.

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
Courses
Discourse
Men
Course
Showing
Life
Education
Mirror
Lives
Educational
Means
Mirrors
Rule
True
Principles
Mean
Control
Obey
Make

More quotes by 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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Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.
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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We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.
Michel de Montaigne
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Health is a precious thing, and the only one, in truth, meriting that a man should lay out not only his time, sweat, labor and goods, but also life itself to obtain it.
Michel de Montaigne
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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.
Michel de Montaigne
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The shortest way to arrive at glory should be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. And the virtue of Alexander appears to me with much less vigor in his theater than that of Socrates in his mean and obscure. I can easily conceive Socrates in the place of Alexander, but Alexander in that of Socrates I cannot.
Michel de Montaigne
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Whatever I may be, I want to be elsewhere than on paper. My art and my industry have been employed in making myself good for something my studies, in teaching me to do, not to write. I have put all my efforts into forming my life. That is my trade and my work.
Michel de Montaigne
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I do not portray the thing in itself. I portray the passage not a passing from one age to another, or, as the people put it, from seven years to seven years, but from day to day, from minute to minute.
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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He that is a friend to himself, know he is a friend to all.
Michel de Montaigne
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The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.
Michel de Montaigne
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When Socrates, after being relieved of his irons, felt the relish of the itching that their weight had caused in his legs, he rejoiced to consider the close alliance between pain and pleasure.
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 admire the assurance and confidence everyone has in himself, whereas there is hardly anything I am sure I know or that I dare give my word I can do.
Michel de Montaigne
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I had rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory.
Michel de Montaigne
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Wisdom is a solid and entire building, of which every piece keeps its place and bears its mark.
Michel de Montaigne
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Philosophical discussions habitually make men happy and joyful not frowning and sad.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is an absolute perfection... to get the very most out of one's individuality.
Michel de Montaigne
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A person is bound to lose when he talks about himself if he belittles himself, he is believed if he praises himself, he isn't believed.
Michel de Montaigne