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I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have.

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
Opinion
Justice
Law
Better
Would
Prodigious
Laws
Numbers

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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It is fear that I stand most in fear of, in sharpness it exceeds every other feeling.
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Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass?
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We are all of us richer than we think we are but we are taught to borrow and to beg, and brought up more to make use of what is another's than of our own.
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There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.
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True freedom is to have power over oneself for everything.
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Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
Michel de Montaigne
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All opinions in the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end, although they differ as to the means of attaining it.
Michel de Montaigne
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If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.
Michel de Montaigne
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The reverse side of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and no defined limits.
Michel de Montaigne
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I have gathered a posy of other men’s flowers and only the thread that bonds them is my own.
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No wonder, said an Ancient, that chance has so much power over us, since it is by chance that we live.
Michel de Montaigne
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Is it not enough to make me come back to life out of spite, to have someone who spat in my face while I existed come and rub my feet when I am beginning to exist no longer?
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Whatever the Benefits of Fortune are , they yet require a Palate fit to relish and taste them 'Tis Fruition, and not Possession, that renders us Happy.
Michel de Montaigne
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What kind of truth is it which has these mountains as its boundary and is a lie beyond them?
Michel de Montaigne
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Others form man I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed, whom I should really make very different from whathe is if I had to fashion him over again. But now it is done.
Michel de Montaigne
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Writing does not cause misery. It is born of misery.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
Michel de Montaigne
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If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.
Michel de Montaigne
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I consider it equal injustice to set our heart against natural pleasures and to set our heart too much on them. We should neither pursue them, nor flee them we should accept them.
Michel de Montaigne
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We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things.
Michel de Montaigne