Michel de Montaigne

France
28 Feb 1533 // 13 Sep 1592
Essayist / Writer

Quotes

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Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages
Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do
Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think
Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, that maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me
In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page - boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum
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
If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I
I quote others only in order the better to express myself
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