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

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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Love to his soul gave eyes he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life the world around him is the dream.
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People of our time are so formed for agitation and ostentation that goodness, moderation, equability, constancy, and such quiet and obscure qualities are no longer felt.
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If my intentions were not to be read in my eyes and voice, I should not have survived so long without quarrels and without harm, seeing the indiscreet freedom with which I say, right or wrong, whatever comes into my head.
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Virtue shuns ease as a companion. It demands a rough and thorny path.
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To philosophize is nothing else than to prepare oneself for death.
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Poetry reproduces an indefinable mood that is more amorous than love itself. Venus is not so beautiful all naked, alive, and panting, as she is here in Virgil.
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All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own.
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Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry the progress, ignorance the end.
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Knowledge is an excellent drug but no drug has virtue enough to preserve itself from corruption and decay, if the vessel be tainted and impure wherein it is put to keep.
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Almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and on credit.
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In the examples that I here bring in of what I have [read], heard, done or said, I have refrained from daring to alter even the smallest and most indifferent circumstances. My conscience falsifies not an iota for my knowledge I cannot answer.
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There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others.
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A well-bred man is always sociable and complaisant.
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My library is my kingdom, and here I try to make my rule absolute-shutting off this single nook from wife, daughter and society. Elsewhere I have only a verbal authority, and vague. Unhappy is the man, in my opinion, who has no spot at home where he can be at home to himself-to court himself and hide away.
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If I am to serve as an instrument of deceit, at least let it be with a clear conscience. I do not want to be considered either so affectionate or so loyal a servant as to be found fit to betray anyone.
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I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.
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I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head.
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Age imprints more wrinkles a in the mind, than it does in the face, and souls are never, or very rarely seen, that in growing old do not smell sour and musty. Man moves all together, both towards his perfection and decay.
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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.
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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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