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I find no quality so easy for a man to counterfeit as devotion, though his life and manner are not conformable to it the essence of it is abstruse and occult, but the appearances easy and showy.

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
Life
Manner
Appearance
Conformable
Essence
Abstruse
Quality
Showy
Though
Occult
Easy
Counterfeit
Find
Appearances
Men
Devotion

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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He who fears he will suffer, already suffers from his fear.
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He that had never seen a river, imagined the first he met with to be the sea.
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If health and a fair day smile upon me, I am a very good fellow if a corn trouble my toe, I am sullen, out of humor, and inaccessible.
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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I consider myself an average man, except in the fact that I consider myself an average man.
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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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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He whose mouth is out of taste says the wine is flat.
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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Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
Michel de Montaigne
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Now, since everything else is furnished with the exact amount of needle and thread required to maintain its being, it is in truth incredible that we alone should be brought into the world in a defective and indigent state, in a state such that we cannot maintain ourselves without external aid.
Michel de Montaigne
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If people must be talking about me, I would have it to be truthfully and justly. I would willingly return from the next world to contradict any person who described me other than I was, although he did it to honour me.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is fear that I stand most in fear of, in sharpness it exceeds every other feeling.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is nothing so noble and so right as to play our human life well and fitly, nor anything so difficult to learn as how to livethis life well and according to Nature.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, prudently, and fully is a talent that few men have.
Michel de Montaigne
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The worthiest man to be known, and for a pattern to be presented to the world, he is the man of whom we have most certain knowledge. He hath been declared and enlightened by the most clear-seeing men that ever were the testimonies we have of him are in faithfulness and sufficiency most admirable.
Michel de Montaigne
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We wake sleeping, and sleep waking. I do not see so clearly in my sleep but as to my being awake, I never found it clear enough and free from clouds.
Michel de Montaigne
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The curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge.
Michel de Montaigne
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He loves little who loves by rule.
Michel de Montaigne