Michel de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne
Michel Eyquem de Montaignewas one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance, known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. His work is noted for its merging of casual anecdotes and autobiography with serious intellectual insight; his massive volume Essaiscontains some of the most influential essays ever written. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers all over the world, including Francis Bacon, René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Albert Hirschman, William Hazlitt, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche,...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth28 February 1533
CountryFrance
Physicians have this advantage: the sun lights their success and the earth covers their failures.
As far as physicians go, chance is more valuable than knowledge.
The day of your birth leads you to death as well as to life .
We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn .
We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled.
As far as fidelity is concerned, there is no animal in the world as treacherous as man.
The sage says that all that is under heaven incurs the same law and the same fate.
Seneca's virtue shows forth so live and vigorous in his writings, and the defense is so clear there against some of these imputations, as that of his wealth and excessive spending, that I would not believe any testimony to the contrary.
I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head.
Reason has so many forms that we do not know which to choose-Experiment has no fewer.
The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure no slight pleasure.
Since we cannot match it let us take our revenge by abusing it.
Intoxication is calculated to put heart into the elderly and give them delight in dancing.
Wine is the benevolent god, who gives back gaiety to men and restores youth to the old.