Quote

Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything, to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever.

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
Things
Criticism
Railing
Absolutely
Coveted
Since
Proclaim
Found
Defects
Beautiful
Attain
Cannot
Unto
Anything
Revenge
Much
Critics
Soever

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.
Michel de Montaigne
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Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures.
Michel de Montaigne
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Children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.
Michel de Montaigne
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All the opinions in the world point out that pleasure is our aim.
Michel de Montaigne
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Nothing else but an insatiate thirst of enjoying a greedily desired object.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the place where he chanced to be.
Michel de Montaigne
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The daughter-in-law of Pythagoras said that a woman who goes to bed with a man ought to lay aside her modesty with her skirt, and put it on again with her petticoat
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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Those that will combat use and custom by the strict rules of grammar do but jest
Michel de Montaigne
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There is nothing so noble and so right as to play our human life well and fitly, nor anything so difficult to learn as how to livethis life well and according to Nature.
Michel de Montaigne
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Nature has, herself, I fear, imprinted in man a kind of instinct to inhumanity.
Michel de Montaigne
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Satiety comes of too frequent repetition and he who will not give himself leisure to be thirsty can never find the true pleasure of drinking
Michel de Montaigne
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Laws are often made by fools, and even more often by men who fail in equity because they hate equality: but always by men, vain authorities who can resolve nothing.
Michel de Montaigne
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Our wisdom and deliberation for the most part follow the lead of chance.
Michel de Montaigne
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The relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them.
Michel de Montaigne
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He who fears he will suffer, already suffers from his fear.
Michel de Montaigne
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The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould
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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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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And I loathe people who find it harder to put up with a gown askew than with a soul askew and who judge a man by his bow, his bearing and his boots.
Michel de Montaigne