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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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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
Offices
Maintained
Ordered
Insects
Observed
Bees
Office
Polity
Better
Distributed

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
Michel de Montaigne
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Aesop, that great man, saw his master making water as he walked. What! he said, Must we void ourselves as we run? Use our timeas best we may, yet a great part of it will still be idly and ill spent.
Michel de Montaigne
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I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it.
Michel de Montaigne
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Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.
Michel de Montaigne
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Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.
Michel de Montaigne
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Men are tormented by the opinions they have of things, and not the things themselves.
Michel de Montaigne
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All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty and good-nature
Michel de Montaigne
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My trade and art is to live.
Michel de Montaigne
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The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles.
Michel de Montaigne
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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.
Michel de Montaigne
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Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything, to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever.
Michel de Montaigne
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A foreign war is a lot milder than a civil war.
Michel de Montaigne
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I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.
Michel de Montaigne
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I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
Michel de Montaigne
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In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.
Michel de Montaigne
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In plain Truth, it is no Want, but rather Abundance that creates Avarice.
Michel de Montaigne
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When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing.
Michel de Montaigne
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Not only does the wind of accidents stir me according to its blowing, but I am also stirred and troubled by the instability of my attitude.
Michel de Montaigne
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In my youth I studied for ostentation later, a little to gain wisdom now, for recreation never for gain.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance.
Michel de Montaigne