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Poetry reproduces an indefinable mood that is more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful all naked, alive, and panting, as she is here in Virgil.

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
Illusion
Reproduces
Poet
Virgil
Poetry
Panting
Alive
Amorous
Beautiful
Indefinable
Love
Venus
Mood
Naked

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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When Socrates, after being relieved of his irons, felt the relish of the itching that their weight had caused in his legs, he rejoiced to consider the close alliance between pain and pleasure.
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Learning must not only lodge with us: we must marry her.
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There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)
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My errors are by now natural and incorrigible but the good that worthy men do the public by making themselves imitable, I shall perhaps do by making myself evitable.
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It should be noted that children at play are not playing about their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
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Travelling through the world produces a marvellous clarity in the judgment of men. We are all of us confined and enclosed within ourselves, and see no farther than the end of our nose.
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A little of everything and nothing thoroughly, after the French fashion.
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If love and ambition should be in equal balance, and come to jostle with equal force, I make no doubt but that the last would win the prize.
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Difficulty is a coin the learned make use of like jugglers, to conceal the inanity of their art.
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A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom.
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A hair shirt does not always render those chaste who wear it.
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The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.
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The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.
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There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.
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The good, supreme, divine poetry is above the rules and reason. Whoever discerns its beauty with a firm, sedate gaze does not see it, any more than he sees the splendor of a lightning flash. It does not persuade our judgement, it ravishes and overwhelms it.
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Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
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For me, who only desire to become wise, not more learned or eloquent, these logical or Aristotelian dispositions of parts are of no use.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every one is well or ill at ease, according as he finds himself! not he whom the world believes, but he who believes himself to be so, is content and in him alone belief gives itself being and reality
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A straight oar looks bent in the water. It matters not merely that we see a thing, but how we see it.
Michel de Montaigne
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Who is only good that others may know it, and that he may be the better esteemed when 'tis known, who will do well but upon condition that his virtue may be known to men, is one from whom much service is not to be expected.
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