Quote

If you have known how to compose your life, you have done a great deal more than the person who knows how to compose a book. You have done more than the one who has taken cities and empires.

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
Known
Persons
Person
Compose
Book
Empires
Done
Deal
Great
Deals
Life
Cities
Taken

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
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He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.
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Happiness involves working toward meaningful goals.
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I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it.
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It is easier to sacrifice great than little things.
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All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty and good-nature
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Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
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Nature has with a Motherly Tenderness observed this, that the Action she has enjoyned us for our Necessity should be also pleasant to us, and invites us to them, not only by Reason, but also by Appetite: and ’tis Injustice to infringe her Laws.
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I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
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Since philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in it?
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The body enjoys a great share in our being, and has an eminent place in it. Its structure and composition, therefore, are worthy of proper consideration.
Michel de Montaigne
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Our own peculiar human condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh.
Michel de Montaigne
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I am one of those who hold that poetry is never so blithe as in a wanton and irregular subject.
Michel de Montaigne
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We must not attach knowledge to the mind, we have to incorporate it there.
Michel de Montaigne
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When I quote others I do so in order to express my own ideas more clearly.
Michel de Montaigne
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The first lessons with which we should irrigate his mind should be those which teach him to know himself, and to know how to die ... and to live.
Michel de Montaigne
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He who does not live in some degree for others, hardly lives for himself.
Michel de Montaigne
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A man must either imitate the vicious or hate them.
Michel de Montaigne
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We cannot fail in following nature.
Michel de Montaigne
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The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles.
Michel de Montaigne