Quote

In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota for my knowledge I cannot answer.

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
Even
Answers
Alter
Bring
Daring
Heard
Indifferent
Knowledge
Smallest
Read
Conscience
Refrained
Cannot
Answer
Falsifies
Change
Circumstances
Iota
Done
Example
Examples

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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We cannot fail in following nature.
Michel de Montaigne
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We may so seize on virtue, that if we embrace it with an overgreedy and violent desire, it may become vicious.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness.
Michel de Montaigne
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No man divulges his revenue, or at least which way it comes in: but every one publishes his acquisitions.
Michel de Montaigne
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The great and glorious masterpiece of men is to live to the point. All other things-to reign, to hoard, to build-are, at most, but inconsiderable props and appendages.
Michel de Montaigne
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What kind of truth is it which has these mountains as its boundary and is a lie beyond them?
Michel de Montaigne
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True freedom is to have power over oneself for everything.
Michel de Montaigne
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As far as fidelity is concerned, there is no animal in the world as treacherous as man.
Michel de Montaigne
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To say less of yourself than is true is stupidity, not modesty. To pay yourself less than you are worth is cowardice and pusillanimity.
Michel de Montaigne
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A hair shirt does not always render those chaste who wear it.
Michel de Montaigne
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The soul that has no established aim loses itself
Michel de Montaigne
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In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.
Michel de Montaigne
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Judgement holds in me a magisterial seat, at least it carefully tries to. It lets my feelings go their way, both hatred and friendship, even the friendship I bear myself, without being changed and corrupted by them.
Michel de Montaigne
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[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
Michel de Montaigne
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Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favorably and well in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life to alleviate the sense of them.
Michel de Montaigne
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We are more unhappy to see people ahead of us than happy to see people behind us.
Michel de Montaigne
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He loves little who loves by rule.
Michel de Montaigne
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Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.
Michel de Montaigne
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Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything, to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever.
Michel de Montaigne
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If faces were not alike, we could not distinguish men from beasts if they were not different, we could not tell one man from another.
Michel de Montaigne