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There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them.

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
Laws
Huge
Law
Political
Regiment
Change
Gulf
Country
Conventions
Men
Follows
Sets

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.
Michel de Montaigne
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The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbors, causeth a war to follow between Princes.
Michel de Montaigne
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All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
Michel de Montaigne
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I may indeed very well happen to contradict myself but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict.
Michel de Montaigne
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And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets?
Michel de Montaigne
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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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We seem ambitious God's whole work to undo. ...With new diseases on ourselves we war, And with new physic, a worse engine far.
Michel de Montaigne
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Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again.
Michel de Montaigne
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Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself.
Michel de Montaigne
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Don't be afraid to say what you are not afraid to think
Michel de Montaigne
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Teach him a certain refinement in sorting out and selecting his arguments, with an affection for relevance and so for brevity. Above all let him be taught to throw down his arms and surrender to truth as soon as he perceives it, whether the truth is born at his rival's doing or within himself from some change in his ideas.
Michel de Montaigne
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Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so.
Michel de Montaigne
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Scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and nearest at hand.
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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We have power over nothing except our will.
Michel de Montaigne
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Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)
Michel de Montaigne
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Habit is a second nature.
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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The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.
Michel de Montaigne