Quote

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.

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
Corruption
Excellent
Impure
Drug
Tainted
Virtue
Wherein
Knowledge
Vessel
Keep
Decay
Enough
Preserve
Preserves

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.
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To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct.
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Nobody is exempt from saying stupid things, the harm is to do it presumptuously.
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I seek in the reading of books, only to please myself, by an honest diversion.
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Authors communicate with the people by some special extrinsic mark I am the first to do so by my entire being, as Michel de Montaigne.
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All of the days go toward death and the last one arrives there.
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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.
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I honor most those to whom I show least honor and where my soul moves with great alacrity, I forget the proper steps of ceremony.
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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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How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!
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And if nobody reads me, shall I have wasted my time, when I have beguiled so many idle hours with such pleasant and profitable reflections?
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Our wisdom and deliberation for the most part follow the lead of chance.
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Not because Socrates said so, but because it is in truth my own disposition — and perchance to some excess — I look upon all men as my compatriots, and embrace a Pole as a Frenchman, making less account of the national than of the universal and common bond.
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Dreams are faithful interpreters of our inclinations but there is art required to sort and understand them.
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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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He who fears he will suffer, already suffers from his fear.
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Examples teach us that in military affairs, and all others of a like nature, study is apt to enervate and relax the courage of man, rather than to give strength and energy to the mind.
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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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Socrates, who was a perfect model in all great qualities, ... hit on a body and face so ugly and so incongruous with the beauty of his soul, he who was so madly in love with beauty.
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In order always to learn something from others (which is the finest school there can be), I observe in my travels this practice: I always steer those with whom I talk back to the things they know best.
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