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Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again.
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
Pulls
Followed
Mask
Virtue
Purpose
Away
Cannot
Borrows
Sometimes
Presently
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness.
Michel de Montaigne
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.
Michel de Montaigne
The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.
Michel de Montaigne
It is no hard matter to get children but after they are born, then begins the trouble, solicitude, and care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up.
Michel de Montaigne
Men are nothing until they are excited.
Michel de Montaigne
I never met a man who thought his thinking was faulty.
Michel de Montaigne
Were I to live my life over again, I should live it just as I have done. I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future.
Michel de Montaigne
Writing does not cause misery. It is born of misery.
Michel de Montaigne
The world is but a perpetual see-saw.
Michel de Montaigne
Nothing else but an insatiate thirst of enjoying a greedily desired object.
Michel de Montaigne
There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)
Michel de Montaigne
Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.
Michel de Montaigne
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
Seeing that the Senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must have recourse to Reason there is no reason but must be built upon another reason: so here we are retreating backwards to infinity.
Michel de Montaigne
Philosophical discussions habitually make men happy and joyful not frowning and sad.
Michel de Montaigne
Almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and on credit.
Michel de Montaigne
Plenty and indigence depend upon the opinion every one has of them and riches, like glory of health, have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleaded to lend them.
Michel de Montaigne
There is no greater enemy to those who would please than expectation.
Michel de Montaigne
We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.
Michel de Montaigne
To die is not to play a part in society it is the act of a single person. Let us live and laugh among our friends let us die and sulk among strangers.
Michel de Montaigne