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We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others.

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
Feel
Feels
Pricking
Kind
Bittersweet
Malicious
Contemplating
Misfortunes
Delight
Others

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.
Michel de Montaigne
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Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to.
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True freedom is to have power over oneself for everything.
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There is no so wretched and coarse a soul wherein some particular faculty is not seen to shine.
Michel de Montaigne
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The world always looks straights ahead as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others...they always go forward as for me, I roll about in myself.
Michel de Montaigne
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The reverse side of truth has a hundred thousand shapes and no defined limits.
Michel de Montaigne
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We must learn to suffer what we cannot evade.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy.
Michel de Montaigne
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It costs an unreasonable woman no more to pass over one reason than another they cherish themselves most where they are most wrong.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.
Michel de Montaigne
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Difficulty is a coin the learned make use of like jugglers, to conceal the inanity of their art.
Michel de Montaigne
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Silence and modesty are very valuable qualities in conversation.
Michel de Montaigne
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If these Essays were worthy of being judged, it might fall out, in my opinion, that they would not find much favour, either with common and vulgar minds, or with uncommon and eminent ones: the former would not find enough in them, the latter would find too much they might manage to live somewhere in the middle region.
Michel de Montaigne
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We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say?
Michel de Montaigne
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Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry the progress, ignorance the end.
Michel de Montaigne
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Ambition is not a vice of little people.
Michel de Montaigne
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The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all they will chew our meat for us.
Michel de Montaigne
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The pleasantest things in the world are pleasant thoughts, and the great art of life is to have as many of them as possible.
Michel de Montaigne
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I do not teach. I relate.
Michel de Montaigne