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
The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear.
The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly.
One should be ever booted and spurred and ready to depart.
A man must live in the world and make the best of it, such as it is.
..a man may live long, yet live very little. Satisfaction in life depends not on the number of your years, but on your will.
It is not without good reason, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.
No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not lawfully be hanged.
Things seem greater by imagination than they are in effect.
It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness.
It takes strong ears indeed to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship. For it is a healthy love that will risk wounding or offending in order to profer a benefit.
We must learn to suffer what we cannot evade; our life, like the harmony of the world, is composed of contrary things, and one part is no less necessary than the other.
There is nothing useless in nature; not even uselessness itself
It is a rare life that remains orderly even in private.
How many quarrels, and how important, has the doubt as to the meaning of this syllable "Hoc" produced for the world!