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Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592)


Influential French Renaissance writer, generally considered to be the inventor of the personal essay.
Michel de Montaigne
Book I, ch. 8.
Montaigne quotes
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.
Montaigne
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.




Montaigne Michel de quotes
Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.
Montaigne Michel de
Non pudeat dicere, quod non pudet sentire: "Let no man be ashamed to speak what he is not ashamed to think."
Michel de Montaigne quotes
From now on, Montaigne would live for himself rather than for duty.
Michel de Montaigne
There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.
Montaigne Michel de quotes
Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, research is the means of all learning, and ignorance is the end.
Montaigne
There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.
Montaigne Michel de
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
Michel de Montaigne
The world is but a perpetual see-saw.




Michel de Montaigne quotes
Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.
Michel de Montaigne
The most offensive egotist is he that fears to say "I" and "me." "It will probably rain "—that is dogmatic. "I think it will rain"—that is natural and modest. Montaigne is the most delightful of essayists because so great is his humility that he does not think it important that we see not Montaigne. He so forgets himself that he employs no artifice to make us forget him.
Montaigne quotes
C'est de quoi j'ai le plus de peur que la peur.
Montaigne Michel de
He felt ordinary, but knew that the very fact of realizing his ordinariness made him extraordinary.
Montaigne Michel de quotes
The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
Michel de Montaigne
Live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead.
Michel de Montaigne quotes
Montaigne speak of an “Abecedarian” ignorance that precedes knowledge, and a doctoral ignorance that comes after it. The first is the ignorance of those who, not knowing their A-B-C’s, cannot read at all. The second is the ignorance of those who have misread many books.
Michel de Montaigne
The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.
Montaigne Michel de
There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.


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