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Michel de Montaigne -
Essays (1580)
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I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can.
Michel de Montaigne
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Long life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.
Michel de Montaigne
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No man dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours, than that which was before your birth, and concerneth you no more.
Michel de Montaigne
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I cruelly hate cruelty, both by nature and reason, as the worst of all the vices. But then I am so soft in this that I cannot seea chicken's neck wrung without distress, and cannot bear to hear the squealing of a hare between the teeth of my hounds.
Michel de Montaigne
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Rash and incessant scolding runs into custom and renders itself despised.
Michel de Montaigne
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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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It is the rule of rules, and the general law of all laws, that every person should observe those of the place where he is.
Michel de Montaigne
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Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, has made them fortunate.
Michel de Montaigne
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Among the liberal arts, let us begin with the art that liberates us.
Michel de Montaigne
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We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say?
Michel de Montaigne
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If I were of the trade, I should naturalize art as much as they "artialize" nature.
Michel de Montaigne
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The most regular and most perfect soul in the world has but too much to do to keep itself upright from being overthrown by its own weakness.
Michel de Montaigne
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As for me, then, I love life and cultivate it just as God has been pleased to grant it to us.
Michel de Montaigne
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No man divulges his revenue, or at least which way it comes in: but every one publishes his acquisitions.
Michel de Montaigne
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We are all of us richer than we think we are; but we are taught to borrow and to beg, and brought up more to make use of what is another's than of our own.
Michel de Montaigne
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Most of our occupations are low comedy.... We must play our part duly, but as the part of a borrowed character. Of the mask and appearance we must not make a real essence, nor of what is foreign what is our very own.
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Now there cannot be first principles for men, unless the Divinity has revealed them; all the rest--beginning, middle, and end--isnothing but dreams and smoke.
Michel de Montaigne
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We commend a horse for his strength, and sureness of foot, and not for his rich caparisons; a greyhound for his share of heels, not for his fine collar; a hawk for her wing, not for her jesses and bells. Why, in like manner, do we not value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year, and all these are about him, but not in him.
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.
Michel de Montaigne
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Almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and on credit.
Michel de Montaigne
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The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man persuades another man to believe.
Michel de Montaigne
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I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it.
Michel de Montaigne
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We have the pleasures suitable to our lot; let us not usurp those of greatness. Ours are more natural and all the more solid and sure for being humbler. Since we will not do so out of conscience, at least out of ambition let us reject ambition.
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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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A learned man is not learned in all things; but a sufficient man is sufficient throughout, even to ignorance itself.
Michel de Montaigne
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Quote of the day
At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language.
Lafcadio Hearn
Michel de Montaigne
Creative Commons
Born:
February 28, 1533
Died:
September 13, 1592
(aged 59)
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