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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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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
Evil
Inconstancy
Much
Wretched
Base
Folly
Ill
Fortune
Full
Purpose
Inanity

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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In my opinion, every rich man is a miser.
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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.
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Human understanding is marvellously enlightened by daily conversation with men, for we are, otherwise, compressed and heaped up in ourselves, and have our sight limited to the length of our own noses.
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There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
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We are more solicitous that men speak of us, than how they speak.
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We have power over nothing except our will.
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When Socrates, after being relieved of his irons, felt the relish of the itching that their weight had caused in his legs, he rejoiced to consider the close alliance between pain and pleasure.
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He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it.
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The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.
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A man must always study, but he must not always go to school: what a contemptible thing is an old abecedarian!
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Friendship is a creature formed for a companionship not for a herd.
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Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance.
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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.
Michel de Montaigne
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The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.
Michel de Montaigne
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The continuous work of our life is to build death.
Michel de Montaigne
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Happiness involves working toward meaningful goals.
Michel de Montaigne
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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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Death pays all debts.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.
Michel de Montaigne
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Virtue can have naught to do with ease. . . . It craves a steep and thorny path.
Michel de Montaigne