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The pleasantest things in the world are pleasant thoughts, and the great art of life is to have as many of them as possible.

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
Many
Great
Pleasantest
Things
Pleasant
Life
Thoughts
World
Joy
Possible
Happiness
Art

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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There is nothing of evil in life for him who rightly comprehends that death is no evil to know how to die delivers us from all subjection and constraint.
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He whose mouth is out of taste says the wine is flat.
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The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly.
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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.
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Poetry reproduces an indefinable mood that is more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful all naked, alive, and panting, as she is here in Virgil.
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We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.
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Knowledge is an excellent drug but no drug has virtue enough to preserve itself from corruption and decay, if the vessel be tainted and impure wherein it is put to keep.
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To how many blockheads of my time has a cold and taciturn demeanor procured the credit of prudence and capacity!
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Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favorably and well in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life to alleviate the sense of them.
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'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
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It takes so much to be a king that he exists only as such. That extraneous glare that surrounds him hides him and conceals him from us our sight breaks and is dissipated by it being filled and arrested by this strong light.
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There is a certain amount of purpose, acquiescence, and satisfaction in nursing one's melancholy.
Michel de Montaigne
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Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
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Don't be afraid to say what you are not afraid to think
Michel de Montaigne
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He who lives not to others, lives little to himself.
Michel de Montaigne
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We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things.
Michel de Montaigne
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Petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. The smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. As small letters weary the eye most, so the smallest affairs disturb us most.
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Have you been able to think out and manage your own life? You have done the greatest task of all.... All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.
Michel de Montaigne
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Eloquence is an engine invented to manage and wield at will the fierce democracy, and, like medicine to the sick, is only employed in the paroxysms of a disordered state.
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