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We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn.

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
Believe
Disbelieve
Condemn
Double
Cannot

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.
Michel de Montaigne
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Books are pleasant, but if by being over-studious we impair our health and spoil our good humour, two of the best things we have, let us give it over. I, for my part, am one of those who think no fruit derived from them can recompense so great a loss.
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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.
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A man must either imitate the vicious or hate them.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is no greater enemy to those who would please than expectation.
Michel de Montaigne
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We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.
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It's not victory if it doesn't end the war.
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Don't be afraid to say what you are not afraid to think
Michel de Montaigne
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I aim here only at revealing myself, who will perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me.
Michel de Montaigne
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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.
Michel de Montaigne
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If not for that of conscience, yet at least for ambition's sake, let us reject ambition, let us disdain that thirst of honor and renown, so low and mendicant that it makes us beg it of all sorts of people.
Michel de Montaigne
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Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition.
Michel de Montaigne
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To say less of yourself than is true is stupidity, not modesty. To pay yourself less than you are worth is cowardice and pusillanimity.
Michel de Montaigne
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I may indeed very well happen to contradict myself but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict.
Michel de Montaigne
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Among the liberal arts, let us begin with the art that liberates us.
Michel de Montaigne
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An orator of past times declared that his calling was to make small things appear to be grand.
Michel de Montaigne
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The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, and with good reason that passion alone, in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents
Michel de Montaigne
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All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own.
Michel de Montaigne
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We do not marry for ourselves, whatever we say we marry just as much or more for our posterity, for our family. The practice and benefit of marriage concerns our race very far beyond us.
Michel de Montaigne
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We should spread joy, but, as far as we can, repress sorrow.
Michel de Montaigne