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

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent. Such as are between both (which is the most common fashion), it is they that spoil all they will needs chew our meat for us and take upon them a law to judge, and by consequence to square and incline the story according to their fantasy.
Michel de Montaigne
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Persons of mean understandings, not so inquisitive, nor so well instructed, are made good Christians, and by reverence and obedience, implicity believe, and abide by their belief.
Michel de Montaigne
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If I am to serve as an instrument of deceit, at least let it be with a clear conscience. I do not want to be considered either so affectionate or so loyal a servant as to be found fit to betray anyone.
Michel de Montaigne
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The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear.
Michel de Montaigne
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Learning must not only lodge with us: we must marry her.
Michel de Montaigne
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Beauty is the true prerogative of women, and so peculiarly their own, that our sex, though naturally requiring another sort of feature, is never in its lustre but when puerile and beardless, confused and mixed with theirs.
Michel de Montaigne
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Now, since everything else is furnished with the exact amount of needle and thread required to maintain its being, it is in truth incredible that we alone should be brought into the world in a defective and indigent state, in a state such that we cannot maintain ourselves without external aid.
Michel de Montaigne
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The human face is a weak guarantee yet it deserves some consideration. And if I had to whip the wicked, I would do so more severely to those who belied and betrayed the promises that nature had implanted on their brows I would punish malice more harshly when it was hidden under a kindly appearance.
Michel de Montaigne
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I know that the arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of the world to the other
Michel de Montaigne
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We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.
Michel de Montaigne
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The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.
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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Socrates and then Archesilaus used to make their pupils speak first they spoke afterwards. 'Obest plerumque iss discere volunt authoritas eorum qui docent.' [For those who want to learn, the obstacle can often be the authority of those who teach]
Michel de Montaigne
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Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it.
Michel de Montaigne
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The only thing certain is nothing is certain.
Michel de Montaigne
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To smell, though well, is to stink.
Michel de Montaigne
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Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him.
Michel de Montaigne
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If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.
Michel de Montaigne
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Human understanding is marvellously enlightened by daily conversation with men, for we are, otherwise, compressed and heaped up in ourselves, and have our sight limited to the length of our own noses.
Michel de Montaigne
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I do not teach. I relate.
Michel de Montaigne