whoever shall consider man impartially, and without flattery, will see in him no efficacy or faculty that relishes of any thing but death and earth.
 Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (1580). copy citation

add
Author Michel de Montaigne
Source The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Topic flattery death
Date 1580
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Charles Cotton
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm

Context

“Let us ingenuously confess that God alone has dictated it to us, and faith; for ‘tis no lesson of nature and our own reason. And whoever will inquire into his own being and power, both within and without, without this divine privilege; whoever shall consider man impartially, and without flattery, will see in him no efficacy or faculty that relishes of any thing but death and earth. The more we give and confess to owe and render to God, we do it with the greater Christianity. That which this Stoic philosopher says he holds from the fortuitous consent of the popular voice; had it not been better that he had held it from God?” source