Quote

In my youth I studied for ostentation later, a little to gain wisdom now, for recreation never for gain.

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
Never
Gains
Later
Youth
Education
Wisdom
Ostentation
Littles
Recreation
Little
Studied
Self
Gain

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He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it.
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Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.
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Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.
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The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all they will chew our meat for us.
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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.
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The only good histories are those written by those who had command in the events they describe.
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I look upon the too good opinion that man has of himself, as the nursing mother of all false opinions, both public and private.
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Poverty of goods is easily cured poverty of soul, impossible.
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There is no greater enemy to those who would please than expectation.
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The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.
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Once you have decided to keep a certain pile, it is no longer yours for you can't spend it.
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The first distinction among men, and the first consideration that gave one precedence over another, was doubtless the advantage of beauty.
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Fortune does us neither good nor hurt she only presents us the matter, and the seed, which our soul, more powerfully than she, turns and applies as she best pleases being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition.
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We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.
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I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.
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Philosophical discussions habitually make men happy and joyful not frowning and sad.
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Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget.
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I admire the assurance and confidence everyone has in himself, whereas there is hardly anything I am sure I know or that I dare give my word I can do.
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The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear.
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Virtue can have naught to do with ease. . . . It craves a steep and thorny path.
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