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Fools, Foolishness
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Fortune, seeing that she could not make fools wise, has made them lucky.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Forgiveness
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One may disavow and disclaim vices that surprise us, and whereto our passions transport us; but those which by long habits are rooted in a strong and powerful will are not subject to contradiction. Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Fortune
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My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Friends
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If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Goals
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No wind favors him who has no destined port.
-Michel de Montaigne
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No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
-Michel de Montaigne
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God
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To honor him whom we have made is far from honoring him that hath made us..
-Michel de Montaigne
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Government
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It is very easy to accuse a government of imperfection, for all mortal things are full of it.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Greed
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It is not the want, but rather abundance that creates avarice.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Habits
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Habit is second nature.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Happiness
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The smallest annoyances, disturb us the most.
-Michel de Montaigne
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The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.
-Michel de Montaigne
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The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
-Michel de Montaigne
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History
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I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent. Such as are between both (which is the most common fashion), it is they that spoil all; they will needs chew our meat for us and take upon them a law to judge, and by consequence to square and incline the story according to their fantasy.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Home
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My home...It is my retreat and resting place from wars, I try to keep this corner as a haven against the tempest outside, as I do another corner in my soul.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Honesty
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No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.
-Michel de Montaigne
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The worst of my actions or conditions seem not so ugly unto me as I find it both ugly and base not to dare to avouch for them.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Humanity
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Man is stark mad; he cannot make a flea, and yet he will be making gods by the dozens.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Identity
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I consider myself an average man, except in the fact that I consider myself an average man.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Imagination
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So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination ... And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Independence
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The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be self-sufficient.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Inheritance
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The weeping of an heir is laughter in disguise.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Joy, Excitement
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The most profound joy has more of gravity than of gaiety in it.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Judging, Judgment
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It is a common seen by experience that excellent memories do often accompany weak judgments.
-Michel de Montaigne
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We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.
-Michel de Montaigne
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Books by and about Michel de Montaigne