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Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?

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
Whole
Vast
Emperors
Many
Theatre
Republics
Noble
Farce
Parts
Wherein
Played
Emperor
Kings
Serves
Age
Ages
Universe
Republic

More quotes by 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.
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I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.
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The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould
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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.
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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.
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He who is not sure of his memory, should not undertake the trade of lying.
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In my opinion it is the happy living, and not, as Antisthenes said, the happy lying, in which human happiness consists.
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It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness.
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To smell, though well, is to stink.
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If faces were not alike, we could not distinguish men from beasts if they were not different, we could not tell one man from another.
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The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.
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Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him.
Michel de Montaigne
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Saying is one thing and doing is another
Michel de Montaigne
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A man must always study, but he must not always go to school: what a contemptible thing is an old abecedarian!
Michel de Montaigne
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Some impose upon the world that they believe that which they do not others, more in number, make themselves believe that they believe, not being able to penetrate into what it is to believe.
Michel de Montaigne
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For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and the grave in bed, beauty before goodness.
Michel de Montaigne
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Examples teach us that in military affairs, and all others of a like nature, study is apt to enervate and relax the courage of man, rather than to give strength and energy to the mind.
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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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I aim here only at revealing myself, who will perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me.
Michel de Montaigne
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Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.
Michel de Montaigne