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Quote by Michel de Montaigne

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Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays

This compilation features a curated selection of Michel de Montaigne's most renowned essays, showcasing his wit, insight, and philosophical depth on a wide range of subjects. more

Author

Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne was a French Renaissance philosopher, essayist, and writer. He is considered one of the most significant figures in the history of the essay. Montaigne's work, particularly his book 'Essays', has been influential in the development of modern prose. more

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“I find no quality so easy for a man to counterfeit as devotion, though his life and manner are not conformable to it; the essence of it is abstruse and occult, but the appearances easy and showy.”

MenEasyQualityEssenceAppearanceDevotionOccultCounterfeitShowy
Book:Works: Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy; with Notes, Notices, Etc
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“Laws gain their authority from actual possession and custom: it is perilous to go back to their origins; laws, like our rivers, get greater and nobler as they roll along: follow them back upstream to their sources and all you find is a tiny spring, hardly recognizable; as time goes by it swells with pride and grows in strength.”

LawGrowsGreaterSourcePrideAuthoritySpringGainsRiversPossessionTinyCustomsTime Goes By
Book:The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
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“Men do not know the natural infirmity of their mind: it does nothing but ferret and quest, and keeps incessantly whirling around, building up and becoming entangled in its own work, like silkworms, and is suffocated in it. A mouse in a pitch barrel...thinks it notices from a distance some sort of glimmer of imaginary light and truth; but while running toward it, it is crossed by so many difficulties and obstacles, and diverted by so many new quests, that it strays from the road, bewildered.”

ThinkingKnowsMenMindDoeLightRunningNaturalBuildingBecomingDifficultyDistanceObstaclesImaginaryQuestsMiceBarrelsInfirmityIncessantlyBewilderedBuilding UpFerrets
Author:Michel de Montaigne
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