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

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Books are pleasant, but if by being over-studious we impair our health and spoil our good humour, two of the best things we have, let us give it over. I, for my part, am one of those who think no fruit derived from them can recompense so great a loss.
Michel de Montaigne
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Time steals away without any inconvenience.
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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Children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is no so wretched and coarse a soul wherein some particular faculty is not seen to shine.
Michel de Montaigne
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The day of your birth leads you to death as well as to life.
Michel de Montaigne
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Meditation is a rich and powerful method of study for anyone who knows how to examine his mind.
Michel de Montaigne
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When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing.
Michel de Montaigne
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We judge a horse not only by its pace on a racecourse, but also by its walk, nay, when resting in its stable.
Michel de Montaigne
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Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.
Michel de Montaigne
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He that had never seen a river imagined the first he met to be the sea and the greatest things that have fallen within our knowledge we conclude the extremes that nature makes of the kind.
Michel de Montaigne
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Diogenes was asked what wine he liked best and he answered as I would have done when he said, Somebody else's.
Michel de Montaigne
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Cowardice is the mother of cruelty.
Michel de Montaigne
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Seeing that the Senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must have recourse to Reason there is no reason but must be built upon another reason: so here we are retreating backwards to infinity.
Michel de Montaigne
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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
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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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Is there anything so grave and serious as an ass?
Michel de Montaigne
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Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul.
Michel de Montaigne
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The shortest way to arrive at glory should be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. And the virtue of Alexander appears to me with much less vigor in his theater than that of Socrates in his mean and obscure. I can easily conceive Socrates in the place of Alexander, but Alexander in that of Socrates I cannot.
Michel de Montaigne