Quote

Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.

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
Science
Opening
Others
Worthy
Character
Door
Derive
Anything
Benefits
Enabling
May
Importance
Courtesy
Time
Highest
Imitation
Doors
Instruction
Example
Benefit

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The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear.
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Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
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The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all they will chew our meat for us.
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We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.
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And if nobody reads me, shall I have wasted my time, when I have beguiled so many idle hours with such pleasant and profitable reflections?
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'As a man who knows how to make his education into a rule of life not a means of showing off who can control himself and obey his own principles.' The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives.
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Getting married is very much like going to a restaurant with friends. You order what you want then when you see what the other person has, you wish you had ordered that.
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To honor him whom we have made is far from honoring him that hath made us.
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The religion of my doctor or my lawyer cannot matter. That consideration has nothing in common with the functions of the friendship they owe me.
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It is only reasonable to allow the administration of affairs to mothers before their children reach the age prescribed by law at which they themselves can be responsible. But that father would have reared them ill who could not hope that in their maturity they would have more wisdom and competence than his wife.
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And not to serve for a table-talk.
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Behold the hands, how they promise, conjure, appeal, menace, pray, supplicate, refuse, beckon, interrogate, admire, confess, cringe, instruct, command, mock and what not besides, with a variation and multiplication of variation which makes the tongue envious.
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He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it.
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I love a friendship that flatters itself in the sharpness and vigor of its communications.
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Wisdom is a solid and entire building, of which every piece keeps its place and bears its mark.
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God is favorable to those whom he makes to die by degrees 'tis the only benefit of old age. The last death will be so much the less painful: it will kill but a quarter of a man or but half a one at most.
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Scratching is one of nature's sweetest gratifications, and nearest at hand.
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We should spread joy, but, as far as we can, repress sorrow.
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The plague of man is the opinion of knowledge. That is why ignorance is so recommended by our religion as a quality suitable to belief and obedience.
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I may indeed very well happen to contradict myself but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict.
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