Quote

The first distinction among men, and the first consideration that gave one precedence over another, was doubtless the advantage of beauty.

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
Among
Beauty
Another
Doubtless
Firsts
Precedence
First
Consideration
Men
Distinction
Advantage
Gave

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I must use these great men's virtues as a cloak for my weakness.
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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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We find ourselves more taken with the running up and down, the games, and puerile simplicities of our children, than we do, afterward, with their most complete actions as if we had loved them for our sport, like monkeys, and not as men.
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Books are pleasant, but if by being over-studious we impair our health and spoil our good humour, two of the best things we have, let us give it over. I, for my part, am one of those who think no fruit derived from them can recompense so great a loss.
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I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.
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What fear has once made me will, I am bound still to will when without fear.
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Fie on the eloquence that leaves us craving itself, not things!
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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.
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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.
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The world is but a perpetual see-saw.
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Once you have decided to keep a certain pile, it is no longer yours for you can't spend it.
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There is nothing so extreme that is not allowed by the custom of some nation or other.
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Our zeal works wonders, whenever it supports our inclination toward hatred, cruelty, ambition.
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Reason has so many forms that we do not know which to choose-Experiment has no fewer.
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Glory and repose are things that cannot possibly inhabit in one and the same place.
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He who falls obstinate in his courage, if he falls he fights from his knees.
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We are all patchwork, and so shapeless and diverse in composition that each bit, each moment, plays its own game.
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It is the part of cowardice, not of courage, to go and crouch in a hole under a massive tomb, to avoid the blows of fortune.
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Men are tormented by the opinions they have of things, and not the things themselves.
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Whoever will imagine a perpetual confession of ignorance, a judgment without leaning or inclination, on any occasion whatever, hasa conception of Pyrrhonism.
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