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If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.
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
Decision
Apprenticeship
Mind
Essays
Make
Trial
Always
Trials
Would
Firm
Gain
Gains
Decisions
Footing
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
I had rather complain of ill-fortune than be ashamed of victory.
Michel de Montaigne
It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many.
Michel de Montaigne
Everyone gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.
Michel de Montaigne
We wake sleeping, and sleep waking. I do not see so clearly in my sleep but as to my being awake, I never found it clear enough and free from clouds.
Michel de Montaigne
A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.
Michel de Montaigne
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them if they will not apply themselves to me.
Michel de Montaigne
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
Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favorably and well in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life to alleviate the sense of them.
Michel de Montaigne
Is there anything so grave and serious as an ass?
Michel de Montaigne
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
Michel de Montaigne
My trade and art is to live.
Michel de Montaigne
If I were of the trade, I should naturalize art as much as they artialize nature.
Michel de Montaigne
I do not correct my first imaginings by my second--well, yes, perhaps a word or so, but only to vary, not to delete. I want to represent the course of my humors and I want people to see each part at its birth.
Michel de Montaigne
We took advantage of [the Indians'] ignorance and inexperience to incline them the more easily toward treachery, lewdness, avarice, and every sort of inhumanity and cruelty, after the example and pattern of our ways.
Michel de Montaigne
Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so.
Michel de Montaigne
Knowledge is an excellent drug but no drug has virtue enough to preserve itself from corruption and decay, if the vessel be tainted and impure wherein it is put to keep.
Michel de Montaigne
If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.
Michel de Montaigne
Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance.
Michel de Montaigne
Saying is one thing and doing is another
Michel de Montaigne
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.
Michel de Montaigne
