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

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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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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Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.
Michel de Montaigne
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True it is that she who escapeth safe and unpolluted from out the school of freedom, giveth more confidence of herself than she who comet sound out of the school of severity and restraint.
Michel de Montaigne
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For among other things he had been counseled to bring me to love knowledge and duty by my own choice, without forcing my will, and to educate my soul entirely through gentleness and freedom.
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I have gathered a posy of other men’s flowers and only the thread that bonds them is my own.
Michel de Montaigne
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The plague of man is the opinion of knowledge. That is why ignorance is so recommended by our religion as a quality suitable to belief and obedience.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is not without good reason, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.
Michel de Montaigne
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The clatter of arms drowns out the voice of law.
Michel de Montaigne
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A person is bound to lose when he talks about himself if he belittles himself, he is believed if he praises himself, he isn't believed.
Michel de Montaigne
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We are all of us richer than we think we are.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, prudently, and fully is a talent that few men have.
Michel de Montaigne
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He that had never seen a river, imagined the first he met with to be the sea.
Michel de Montaigne
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After they had accustomed themselves at Rome to the spectacles of the slaughter of animals, they proceeded to those of the slaughter of men, to the gladiators.
Michel de Montaigne
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The most certain sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.
Michel de Montaigne
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I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.
Michel de Montaigne
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I find no quality so easy for a man to counterfeit as devotion, though his life and manner are not conformable to it the essence of it is abstruse and occult, but the appearances easy and showy.
Michel de Montaigne
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Happiness involves working toward meaningful goals.
Michel de Montaigne
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The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man persuades another man to believe.
Michel de Montaigne
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We are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak.
Michel de Montaigne
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To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, it is but to run to my books they presently fix me to them, and drive the other out of my thoughts, and do not mutiny to see that I have only recourse to them for want of other more, real, natural, and lively conveniences they always receive me with the same kindness.
Michel de Montaigne