Quote

Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant.

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
Original
Creatures
Malady
Natural
Presumption
Self
Frail
Men
Arrogant
Time
Arrogance
Originals
Vulnerable

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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What kind of truth is it which has these mountains as its boundary and is a lie beyond them?
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There is no so wretched and coarse a soul wherein some particular faculty is not seen to shine.
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Marriage can be compared to a cage: birds outside it despair to enter, and birds within, to escape.
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I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.
Michel de Montaigne
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Rash and incessant scolding runs into custom and renders itself despised.
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Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything, to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever.
Michel de Montaigne
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I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.
Michel de Montaigne
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I must use these great men's virtues as a cloak for my weakness.
Michel de Montaigne
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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.
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The plague of man is boasting of his knowledge.
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.
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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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We are all of us richer than we think we are.
Michel de Montaigne
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I am one of those who hold that poetry is never so blithe as in a wanton and irregular subject.
Michel de Montaigne
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The world always looks straights ahead as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others...they always go forward as for me, I roll about in myself.
Michel de Montaigne
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Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.
Michel de Montaigne
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The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold...The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.
Michel de Montaigne
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How often our involuntary facial motions testify to the thoughts we were keeping secret, and betray us to those around!
Michel de Montaigne
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[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
Michel de Montaigne
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I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.
Michel de Montaigne