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

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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As by some might be saide of me: that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange floures, and have put nothing of mine unto it, but the thred to binde them. Certes, I have given unto publike opinion, that these borrowed ornaments accompany me but I meane not they should cover or hide me.
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To make a crooked stick straight, we bend it the contrary way.
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Every movement reveals us.
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Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.
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Nothing else but an insatiate thirst of enjoying a greedily desired object.
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Let us a little permit nature to take her own way she better understands her own affairs than we.
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If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.
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To behave rightly, we ourselves should never lay a hand on our servants as long as our anger lasts. Things will seem different to us when we have quieted and cooled down.
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Satiety comes of too frequent repetition and he who will not give himself leisure to be thirsty can never find the true pleasure of drinking
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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.
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And not to serve for a table-talk.
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Intelligence is required to be able to know that a man knows not.
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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.
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We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others.
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After a tongue has once got the knack of lying, it is not to be imagined how impossible almost it is to reclaim it. Whence it comes to pass, that we see some men, who are otherwise very honest, so subject to this vice.
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Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.
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Each person calls barbarism whatever is not his or her own practice.... We may call Cannibals barbarians, in respect to the rulesof reason, but not in respect to ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarity.
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Is there anything so grave and serious as an ass?
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One should be ever booted and spurred and ready to depart.
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Persons of mean understandings, not so inquisitive, nor so well instructed, are made good Christians, and by reverence and obedience, implicity believe, and abide by their belief.
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