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To how many blockheads of my time has a cold and taciturn demeanor procured the credit of prudence and capacity!

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
Cold
Taciturn
Many
Procured
Time
Blockheads
Demeanor
Prudence
Gravity
Credit
Capacity

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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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.
Michel de Montaigne
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No doctor takes pleasure in the health even of his friends.
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Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head.
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If not for that of conscience, yet at least for ambition's sake, let us reject ambition, let us disdain that thirst of honor and renown, so low and mendicant that it makes us beg it of all sorts of people.
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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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If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays, I would make decisions but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.
Michel de Montaigne
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We have so much ill fortune as inconstancy, or so much bad purpose as folly, we are not so full of evil as we are of inanity we are not so wretched as we are base
Michel de Montaigne
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To smell, though well, is to stink.
Michel de Montaigne
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If these Essays were worthy of being judged, it might fall out, in my opinion, that they would not find much favour, either with common and vulgar minds, or with uncommon and eminent ones: the former would not find enough in them, the latter would find too much they might manage to live somewhere in the middle region.
Michel de Montaigne
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As far as I am concerned, no road that would lead us to health is either arduous or expensive.
Michel de Montaigne
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In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge of judgement and virtue, little news.
Michel de Montaigne
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Vexations may be petty, but they are vexations still.
Michel de Montaigne
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There is a certain consideration, and a general duty of humanity, that binds us not only to the animals, which have life and feeling, but even to the trees and plants. We owe justice to people, and kindness and benevolence to all other creatures who may be susceptible of it. There is some intercourse between them and us, and some mutual obligation.
Michel de Montaigne
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Is there anything so grave and serious as an ass?
Michel de Montaigne
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A person is bound to lose when he talks about himself if he belittles himself, he is believed if he praises himself, he isn't believed.
Michel de Montaigne
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It is no hard matter to get children but after they are born, then begins the trouble, solicitude, and care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up.
Michel de Montaigne
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The day of your birth leads you to death as well as to life.
Michel de Montaigne
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Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.
Michel de Montaigne
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All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.
Michel de Montaigne
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How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!
Michel de Montaigne