there is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and other people
--- Michel de Montaigne, Essays II:1, transl. M. A. Screech, The Complete Essays, Penguin 1991 (p. 380)
We are entirely made up of bits and pieces, woven together
so diversely and so shapelessly that each one of them pulls its own way at
every moment. And there is as much difference between us and ourselves as there
is between us and other people.