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The most universal quality is diversity.

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
Diversity
Universal
Quality

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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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.
Michel de Montaigne
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The world always looks straights ahead as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others...they always go forward as for me, I roll about in myself.
Michel de Montaigne
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To behave rightly, we ourselves should never lay a hand on our servants as long as our anger lasts. Things will seem different to us when we have quieted and cooled down.
Michel de Montaigne
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How often our involuntary facial motions testify to the thoughts we were keeping secret, and betray us to those around!
Michel de Montaigne
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I do not teach. I relate.
Michel de Montaigne
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Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.
Michel de Montaigne
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One man may have some special knowledge at first-hand about the character of a river or a spring, who otherwise knows only what everyone else knows. Yet to give currency to this shred of information, he will undertake to write on the whole science of physics. From this fault many great troubles spring.
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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Almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and on credit.
Michel de Montaigne
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No pleasure is fully delightful without communications, and no delight absolute except imparted.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.
Michel de Montaigne
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When we have got it, we want something else.
Michel de Montaigne
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We are born to inquire after truth it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.
Michel de Montaigne
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To smell, though well, is to stink.
Michel de Montaigne
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A man should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey, and above all things look he have then nothing to do but with himself.
Michel de Montaigne
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Off I go, rummaging about in books for sayings which please me.
Michel de Montaigne
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It has never occurred to me to wish for empire or royalty, nor for the eminence of those high and commanding fortunes. My aim lies not in that direction I love myself too well.
Michel de Montaigne
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Have you known how to take rest? You have done more than he who hath taken empires and cities.
Michel de Montaigne
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No man divulges his revenue, or at least which way it comes in: but every one publishes his acquisitions.
Michel de Montaigne
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The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.
Michel de Montaigne