Quote

If people must be talking about me, I would have it to be truthfully and justly. I would willingly return from the next world to contradict any person who described me other than I was, although he did it to honour me.

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
Self
Honour
Must
Although
Would
Return
World
Talking
Truthfully
People
Next
Contradict
Truth
Justly
Persons
Willingly
Person
Described

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Example is a bright looking-glass, universal and for all shapes to look into.
Michel de Montaigne
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Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?
Michel de Montaigne
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The receipts of cookery are swelled to a volume, but a good stomach excels them all to which nothing contributes more than industry and temperance.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is not without good reason, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.
Michel de Montaigne
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Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget.
Michel de Montaigne
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Who ever saw a doctor use the prescription of his colleague without cutting out or adding something?
Michel de Montaigne
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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
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The world is but a school of inquisition it is not who shall enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses.
Michel de Montaigne
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If I were a maker of books I should compile a register, with comments, of different deaths. He who should teach people to die, would teach them to live.
Michel de Montaigne
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Ambition is, of all other, the most contrary humor to solitude and glory and repose are so inconsistent that they cannot possibly inhabit one and the same place and for so much as I understand, those have only their arms and legs disengaged from the crowd, their mind and intention remain engaged behind more than ever.
Michel de Montaigne
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Meditation is a powerful and full study as can effectually taste and employ themselves.
Michel de Montaigne
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The religion of my doctor or my lawyer cannot matter. That consideration has nothing in common with the functions of the friendship they owe me.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is a human tendency to measure truth and error by our capacity.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every man may speak truly, but to speak methodically, prudently, and fully is a talent that few men have.
Michel de Montaigne
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Once you have decided to keep a certain pile, it is no longer yours for you can't spend it.
Michel de Montaigne
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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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The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man persuades another man to believe.
Michel de Montaigne
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The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.
Michel de Montaigne
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Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.
Michel de Montaigne
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Behold the hands, how they promise, conjure, appeal, menace, pray, supplicate, refuse, beckon, interrogate, admire, confess, cringe, instruct, command, mock and what not besides, with a variation and multiplication of variation which makes the tongue envious.
Michel de Montaigne