Quote

He that had never seen a river imagined the first he met to be the sea and the greatest things that have fallen within our knowledge we conclude the extremes that nature makes of the kind.

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
Never
Within
River
Knowledge
Extremes
Makes
Fallen
Nature
Rivers
Firsts
Mets
First
Sea
Kind
Greatest
Conclude
Things
Seen
Imagined

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.
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A strong imagination begetteth opportunity.
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Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?
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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.
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I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head.
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There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.
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Eloquence is an engine invented to manage and wield at will the fierce democracy, and, like medicine to the sick, is only employed in the paroxysms of a disordered state.
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It is commonly seene by experience, that excellent memories do rather accompany weake judgements.
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Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.
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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.
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In my opinion, every rich man is a miser.
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If my intentions were not to be read in my eyes and voice, I should not have survived so long without quarrels and without harm, seeing the indiscreet freedom with which I say, right or wrong, whatever comes into my head.
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There is nothing useless in nature not even uselessness itself
Michel de Montaigne
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Poverty of goods is easily cured poverty of soul, impossible.
Michel de Montaigne
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Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.
Michel de Montaigne
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The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death.
Michel de Montaigne
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The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.
Michel de Montaigne
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And I loathe people who find it harder to put up with a gown askew than with a soul askew and who judge a man by his bow, his bearing and his boots.
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No two men ever judged alike of the same thing, and it is impossible to find two opinions exactly similar, not only in different men but in the same men at different times.
Michel de Montaigne
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If faces were not alike, we could not distinguish men from beasts if they were not different, we could not tell one man from another.
Michel de Montaigne