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To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct.
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
Character
Battles
Book
Conduct
Self
Behavior
Battle
Duty
Books
Tranquillity
Winning
Compose
Order
Provinces
More quotes by Michel de Montaigne
I agree that we should work and prolong the functions of life as far as we can, and hope that Death may find me planting my cabbages, but indifferent to him and still more to the unfinished state of my garden.
Michel de Montaigne
Petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. The smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. As small letters weary the eye most, so the smallest affairs disturb us most.
Michel de Montaigne
There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened.
Michel de Montaigne
A hair shirt does not always render those chaste who wear it.
Michel de Montaigne
But the touch or company of any man whatsoever stirreth up their heat, which in their solitude was hushed and quiet, and lay as cinders raked up in ashes.
Michel de Montaigne
I am one of those who hold that poetry is never so blithe as in a wanton and irregular subject.
Michel de Montaigne
A foreign war is a lot milder than a civil war.
Michel de Montaigne
If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.
Michel de Montaigne
The most useful and honorable science and occupation for a woman is the science of housekeeping. I know some that are miserly, very few that are good managers.
Michel de Montaigne
We call comeliness a mischance in the first respect, which belongs principally to the face.
Michel de Montaigne
There is nothing of evil in life for him who rightly comprehends that death is no evil to know how to die delivers us from all subjection and constraint.
Michel de Montaigne
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.
Michel de Montaigne
We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn.
Michel de Montaigne
No doctor takes pleasure in the health even of his friends.
Michel de Montaigne
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
If your doctor does not think it good for you to sleep, to drink wine, or to eat of a particular dish, do not worry I will find you another who will not agree with him.
Michel de Montaigne
Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own.
Michel de Montaigne
Obstinacy and dogmatism are the surest signs of stupidity. Is there anything more confident, resolute, disdainful, grave and serious than an ass?
Michel de Montaigne
There is nothing useless in nature not even uselessness itself
Michel de Montaigne
The beautiful souls are they that are universal, open, and ready for all things.
Michel de Montaigne