Quote

Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me--a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books.

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
Book
Ones
Inward
Self
Color
Author
Made
Hand
Originals
Life
Books
Original
Extraneous
Like
Purpose
Third
Clearer
Others
Thirds
Integral
Hands
Concerned
Painted
Part
Painting
Colors

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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The first lessons with which we should irrigate his mind should be those which teach him to know himself, and to know how to die ... and to live.
Michel de Montaigne
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Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover he only beats the water for another's net.
Michel de Montaigne
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Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.
Michel de Montaigne
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If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was I.
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Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is a rare life that remains orderly even in private.
Michel de Montaigne
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Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures.
Michel de Montaigne
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To smell, though well, is to stink.
Michel de Montaigne
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Things seem greater by imagination than they are in effect.
Michel de Montaigne
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Reason has so many forms that we do not know which to choose-Experiment has no fewer.
Michel de Montaigne
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Love to his soul gave eyes he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life the world around him is the dream.
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 finest lives in my opinion are the common model, without miracle and without extravagance.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is not my deeds that I write down, it is myself, my essence.
Michel de Montaigne
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And obstinacy is the sister of constancy, at least in vigour and stability.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.
Michel de Montaigne
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... whoever believes anything esteems that it is a work of charity to persuade another of it.
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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We have so much ill fortune as inconstancy, or so much bad purpose as folly, we are not so full of evil as we are of inanity we are not so wretched as we are base
Michel de Montaigne
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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.
Michel de Montaigne