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It has never occurred to me to wish for empire or royalty, nor for the eminence of those high and commanding fortunes. My aim lies not in that direction I love myself too well.

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
Wells
Empires
Well
Aim
Never
Direction
Commanding
Love
Fortune
Eminence
Lies
Fortunes
High
Royalty
Lying
Occurred
Wish
Empire

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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It is a thorny undertaking, and more so than it seems, to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind, to penetrate the opaque depths of its innermost folds, to pick out and immobilize the innumerable flutterings that agitate it.
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Why dost thou complain of this world? It detains thee not thy own cowardice is the cause, if thou livest in pain.
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There is nothing so noble and so right as to play our human life well and fitly, nor anything so difficult to learn as how to livethis life well and according to Nature.
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If you have known how to compose your life, you have done a great deal more than the person who knows how to compose a book. You have done more than the one who has taken cities and empires.
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The honor we receive from those that fear us, is not honor those respects are paid to royalty and not to me.
Michel de Montaigne
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A man must either imitate the vicious or hate them.
Michel de Montaigne
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I see this evident, that we willingly accord to piety only the services that flatter our passions.
Michel de Montaigne
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The memory represents to us not what we choose but what it pleases.
Michel de Montaigne
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All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
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.
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Disappointment and feebleness imprint upon us a cowardly and valetudinarian virtue.
Michel de Montaigne
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If you don't know how to die, don't worry Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you don't bother your head about it.
Michel de Montaigne
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For among other things he had been counseled to bring me to love knowledge and duty by my own choice, without forcing my will, and to educate my soul entirely through gentleness and freedom.
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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Is there anything so grave and serious as an ass?
Michel de Montaigne
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Learning is a good medicine: but no medicine is powerful enough to preserve itself from taint and corruption independently of defects in the jar that it is kept in. One man sees clearly but does not see straight: consequently he sees what is good but fails to follow it he sees knowledge and does not use it.
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There is nothing on which men are commonly more intent than on making a way for their opinions.
Michel de Montaigne
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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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To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, it is but to run to my books they presently fix me to them, and drive the other out of my thoughts, and do not mutiny to see that I have only recourse to them for want of other more, real, natural, and lively conveniences they always receive me with the same kindness.
Michel de Montaigne
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My trade and art is to live.
Michel de Montaigne