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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.

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
Least
Instrument
Anyone
Servant
Clear
Considered
Found
Instruments
Serve
Affectionate
Fit
Deceit
Conscience
Betray
Either
Loyal

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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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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How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!
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True freedom is to have power over oneself for everything.
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Meditation is a rich and powerful method of study for anyone who knows how to examine his mind.
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There is no so wretched and coarse a soul wherein some particular faculty is not seen to shine.
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If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he, and I was I.
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An orator of past times declared that his calling was to make small things appear to be grand.
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We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.
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The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.
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A man must not always tell all, for that be folly but what a man says should be what he thinks.
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The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
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I want death to find me planting my cabbages, but careless of death, and still more of my unfinished garden.
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Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.
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I know that the arms of friendship are long enough to reach from the one end of the world to the other
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Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.
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There is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy.
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The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man some contribute treachery, others injustice, atheism, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power.
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Since philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in it?
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The public weal requires that men should betray, and lie, and massacre.
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Great authors, when they write about causes, adduce not only those they think are true but also those they do not believe in, provided they have some originality and beauty. They speak truly and usefully enough if they speak ingeniously.
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