Quote

Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope, that in a mortal subject, and in a moment, makes nothing of usurping infinity, immensity, eternity, and of supplying its masters indigence, at its pleasure, with all things he can imagine or desire!

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
Nothing
Subjects
Immensity
Things
Imagine
Infinity
Pleasure
Mortal
Moment
Faculty
Hope
Mortals
Indigence
Desire
Eternity
Usurping
Makes
Subject
Supplying
Moments
Masters
Valiant

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Socrates and then Archesilaus used to make their pupils speak first they spoke afterwards. 'Obest plerumque iss discere volunt authoritas eorum qui docent.' [For those who want to learn, the obstacle can often be the authority of those who teach]
Michel de Montaigne
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Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it.
Michel de Montaigne
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In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge of judgement and virtue, little news.
Michel de Montaigne
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Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.
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.
Michel de Montaigne
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Intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not.
Michel de Montaigne
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Is there a polity better ordered, the offices better distributed, and more inviolably observed and maintained, than that of bees?
Michel de Montaigne
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Satiety comes of too frequent repetition and he who will not give himself leisure to be thirsty can never find the true pleasure of drinking
Michel de Montaigne
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A little of everything and nothing thoroughly, after the French fashion.
Michel de Montaigne
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Those that will combat use and custom by the strict rules of grammar do but jest
Michel de Montaigne
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I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every day I hear stupid people say things that are not stupid.
Michel de Montaigne
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When we have got it, we want something else.
Michel de Montaigne
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And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets?
Michel de Montaigne
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He who falls obstinate in his courage, if he falls he fights from his knees.
Michel de Montaigne
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The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.
Michel de Montaigne
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Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance.
Michel de Montaigne
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Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so.
Michel de Montaigne
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It should be noted that children at play are not playing about their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
Michel de Montaigne