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Lay a beam between these two towers of such width as we need to walk on: there is no philosophical wisdom of such great firmness that it can give us courage to walk on it as we should if it were on the ground.

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
Great
Walk
Width
Needs
Courage
Firmness
Walks
Apprehension
Wisdom
Beam
Two
Towers
Give
Lays
Need
Philosophical
Giving
Ground

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When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss his accusations of himself are always believed his praises never.
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There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
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And if nobody reads me, shall I have wasted my time, when I have beguiled so many idle hours with such pleasant and profitable reflections?
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The most ordinary things, the most common and familiar, if we could see them in their true light, would turn out to be the grandest miracles.
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To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value, is pusillanimity and cowardice.
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Every man has within himself the entire human condition
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The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all they will chew our meat for us.
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Ambition is not a vice of little people.
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Every period of life has its peculiar prejudices whoever saw old age, that did not applaud the past, and condemn the present times?
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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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Make use of life while you have it. Whether you have lived enough depends upon yourself, not on the number of your years.
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Don't be afraid to say what you are not afraid to think
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A strong imagination begetteth opportunity.
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It takes so much to be a king that he exists only as such. That extraneous glare that surrounds him hides him and conceals him from us our sight breaks and is dissipated by it being filled and arrested by this strong light.
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The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould
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A lady could not boast of her chastity who was never tempted.
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The wise man should withdraw his soul within, out of the crowd, and keep it in freedom and power to judge things freely but as for externals, he should wholly follow the accepted fashions and forms.
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I see this evident, that we willingly accord to piety only the services that flatter our passions.
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I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.
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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.
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