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Necessity is a violent school-mistress.

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
Mistress
Necessity
Violent
School

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The world is but a perpetual see-saw.
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Petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. The smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. As small letters weary the eye most, so the smallest affairs disturb us most.
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Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.
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Glory and repose are things that cannot possibly inhabit in one and the same place.
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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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Is it reasonable that even the arts should take advantage of and profit by our natural stupidity and feebleness of mind?
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The clatter of arms drowns out the voice of law.
Michel de Montaigne
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The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write.
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I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent. Such as are between both (which is the most common fashion), it is they that spoil all they will needs chew our meat for us and take upon them a law to judge, and by consequence to square and incline the story according to their fantasy.
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The body enjoys a great share in our being, and has an eminent place in it. Its structure and composition, therefore, are worthy of proper consideration.
Michel de Montaigne
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A young man ought to cross his own rules, to awake his vigor, and to keep it from growing faint and rusty. And there is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is carried on by rule and discipline.
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Judgement holds in me a magisterial seat, at least it carefully tries to. It lets my feelings go their way, both hatred and friendship, even the friendship I bear myself, without being changed and corrupted by them.
Michel de Montaigne
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Long life, and short, are by death made all one for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.
Michel de Montaigne
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I admire the assurance and confidence everyone has in himself, whereas there is hardly anything I am sure I know or that I dare give my word I can do.
Michel de Montaigne
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Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.
Michel de Montaigne
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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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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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The most useful and honorable science and occupation for a woman is the science of housekeeping. I know some that are miserly, very few that are good managers.
Michel de Montaigne
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In true friendship, in which I am expert, I give myself to my friend more than I draw him to me. I not only like doing him good better than having him do me good, but also would rather have him do good to himself than to me he does me most good when he does himself good.
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Diogenes was asked what wine he liked best and he answered as I would have done when he said, Somebody else's.
Michel de Montaigne