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

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.
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I consider myself an average man, except in the fact that I consider myself an average man.
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It's not victory if it doesn't end the war.
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Those who give the first shock to a state are the first overwhelmed in its ruin the fruits of public commotion are seldom enjoyed by him who was the first mover he only beats the water for another's net.
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'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
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I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
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The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.
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Friendship is the highest degree of perfection in society.
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We took advantage of [the Indians'] ignorance and inexperience to incline them the more easily toward treachery, lewdness, avarice, and every sort of inhumanity and cruelty, after the example and pattern of our ways.
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Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately.
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The height and value of true virtue consists in the facility, utility, and pleasure of its exercise so far from difficulty, that boys, as well as men, and the innocent as well as the subtle, may make it their own and it is by order and good conduct, and not by force, that it is to be acquired.
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If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.
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He who lives not to others, lives little to himself.
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The share we have in the knowledge of truth, such as it is, has not been acquired by our own powers. God has taught ushis wonderful secrets our faith is not of our acquiring, it is purely the gift of another's bounty.
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Rash and incessant scolding runs into custom and renders itself despised.
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God defend me from being an honest man according to the description which every day I see made by each man to his own glorification
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It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.
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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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Habit is a second nature.
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I am much afraid that we shall have very greatly hastened the decline and ruin of the New World by our contagion, and that we willhave sold it our opinions and our arts very dear.
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