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I admire the assurance and confidence everyone has in himself, whereas there is hardly anything I am sure I know or that I dare give my word I can do.

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
Sure
Word
Everyone
Assurance
Give
Whereas
Anything
Hardly
Giving
Admire
Dare
Confidence

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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This notion [skepticism] is more clearly understood by asking What do I know?
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Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.
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Amongst all other vices there is none I hate more than cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the extremest of all vices.
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Laws are often made by fools, and even more often by men who fail in equity because they hate equality: but always by men, vain authorities who can resolve nothing.
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Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive and little instructed, make good Christians.
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Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest.
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And if nobody reads me, shall I have wasted my time, when I have beguiled so many idle hours with such pleasant and profitable reflections?
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The pleasure we hold in esteem for the course of our lives ought to have a greater share of our time dedicated to it we should refuse no occasion nor omit any opportunity of drinking, and always have it in our minds.
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If these Essays were worthy of being judged, it might fall out, in my opinion, that they would not find much favour, either with common and vulgar minds, or with uncommon and eminent ones: the former would not find enough in them, the latter would find too much they might manage to live somewhere in the middle region.
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If you don't know how to die, don't worry Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you don't bother your head about it.
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Men are nothing until they are excited.
Michel de Montaigne
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If not for that of conscience, yet at least for ambition's sake, let us reject ambition, let us disdain that thirst of honor and renown, so low and mendicant that it makes us beg it of all sorts of people.
Michel de Montaigne
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Nor is it enough to toughen up his soul you must also toughen up his muscles.
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Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.
Michel de Montaigne
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The great and glorious masterpiece of men is to live to the point. All other things-to reign, to hoard, to build-are, at most, but inconsiderable props and appendages.
Michel de Montaigne
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The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear.
Michel de Montaigne
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Let us a little permit nature to take her own way she better understands her own affairs than we.
Michel de Montaigne
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Obstinacy and contention are common qualities, most appearing in, and best becoming, a mean and illiterate soul.
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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Friendship is a creature formed for a companionship not for a herd.
Michel de Montaigne