"The beauty of stature is the only beauty of men."
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Quote collection
Michel de Montaigne quotes (page 27 of 49)
979 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"All the opinions in the world point out that pleasure is our aim."
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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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"It is not reasonable that art should win the place of honor over our great and powerful mother Nature. We have so overloaded the beauty and richness of her works by our inventions that we have quite smothered her."
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"We perceive no charms that are not sharpened, puffed out, and inflated by artifice. Those which glide along naturally and simply easily escape a sight so gross as ours."
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"Men throw themselves on foreign assistances to spare their own, which, after all, are the only certain and sufficient ones."
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"Aesop, that great man, saw his master making water as he walked. "What!" he said, "Must we void ourselves as we run?" Use our timeas best we may, yet a great part of it will still be idly and ill spent."
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"Habituation puts to sleep the eye of our judgment."
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"I consider it equal injustice to set our heart against natural pleasures and to set our heart too much on them. We should neither pursue them, nor flee them; we should accept them."
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"Seeing that the Senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must have recourse to Reason; there is no reason but must be built upon another reason: so here we are retreating backwards to infinity."
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"I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits."
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"It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance."
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"All we do is to look after the opinions and learning of others: we ought to make them our own."
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"Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement."
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"Make use of life while you have it. Whether you have lived enough depends upon yourself, not on the number of your years."
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"It costs an unreasonable woman no more to pass over one reason than another; they cherish themselves most where they are most wrong."
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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."
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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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"Is it not enough to make me come back to life out of spite, to have someone who spat in my face while I existed come and rub my feet when I am beginning to exist no longer?"
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"Hath God obliged himself not to exceed the bounds of our knowledge?"
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