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I honor most those to whom I show least honor and where my soul moves with great alacrity, I forget the proper steps of ceremony.

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
Shows
Moves
Soul
Proper
Self
Honor
Great
Steps
Least
Forget
Show
Alacrity
Moving
Ceremony

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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We hold death, poverty, and grief for our principal enemies but this death, which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful things, who does not know that others call it the only secure harbor from the storm and tempests of life, the sovereign good of nature, the sole support of liberty, and the common and sudden remedy of all evils?
Michel de Montaigne
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Every abridgement of a good book is a fool abridged.
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When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
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A man should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey, and above all things look he have then nothing to do but with himself.
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No man dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours, than that which was before your birth, and concerneth you no more.
Michel de Montaigne
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Silence and modesty are very valuable qualities in conversation.
Michel de Montaigne
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Plenty and indigence depend upon the opinion every one has of them and riches, like glory of health, have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleaded to lend them.
Michel de Montaigne
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Whatever I may be, I want to be elsewhere than on paper. My art and my industry have been employed in making myself good for something my studies, in teaching me to do, not to write. I have put all my efforts into forming my life. That is my trade and my work.
Michel de Montaigne
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If you don't know how to die, don't worry Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you don't bother your head about it.
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Is it not enough to make me come back to life out of spite, to have someone who spat in my face while I existed come and rub my feet when I am beginning to exist no longer?
Michel de Montaigne
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There is no greater enemy to those who would please than expectation.
Michel de Montaigne
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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
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Our speech has its weaknesses and its defects, like all the rest. Most of the occasions for the troubles of the world are grammatical.
Michel de Montaigne
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Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive and little instructed, make good Christians.
Michel de Montaigne
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One should be ever booted and spurred and ready to depart.
Michel de Montaigne
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To speak less of oneself than what one really is, is folly, not modesty and to take that for current pay which is under a man's value, is pusillanimity and cowardice.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of it.
Michel de Montaigne
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Make use of life while you have it. Whether you have lived enough depends upon yourself, not on the number of your years.
Michel de Montaigne
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I aim here only at revealing myself, who will perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me.
Michel de Montaigne