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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.

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
Filled
Hides
Takes
Arrested
Break
Breaks
Existence
Surround
Dissipated
Strong
Exists
Extraneous
Light
King
Conceals
Much
Kings
Glare
Sight
Surrounds

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Lay a beam between these two towers of such width as we need to walk on: there is no philosophical wisdom of such great firmness that it can give us courage to walk on it as we should if it were on the ground.
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There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly.
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When I am attached by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.
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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.
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The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things.
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I know that the arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of the world to the other
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If people must be talking about me, I would have it to be truthfully and justly. I would willingly return from the next world to contradict any person who described me other than I was, although he did it to honour me.
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[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
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My errors are by now natural and incorrigible but the good that worthy men do the public by making themselves imitable, I shall perhaps do by making myself evitable.
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... whoever believes anything esteems that it is a work of charity to persuade another of it.
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The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.
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To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct.
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We have power over nothing except our will.
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The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould
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All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty and good-nature
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Ambition is, of all other, the most contrary humor to solitude and glory and repose are so inconsistent that they cannot possibly inhabit one and the same place and for so much as I understand, those have only their arms and legs disengaged from the crowd, their mind and intention remain engaged behind more than ever.
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Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.
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For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.
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Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it.
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If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.
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