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
An ancient father says that a dog we know is better company than a man whose language we do not understand.
For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and the grave; in bed, beauty before goodness.
I seek in the reading of books, only to please myself, by an honest diversion.
What a man hates, he takes seriously.
The general order of things that takes care of fleas and moles also takes care of men, if they will have the same patience that fleas and moles have, to leave it to itself.
A father is very miserable who has no other hold on his children's affection than the need they have of his assistance, if that can be called affection.
Some men seem remarkable to the world in whom neither their wives nor their valets saw anything extraordinary. Few men have been admired by their servants.
Rash and incessant scolding runs into custom and renders itself despised.
He that I am reading seems always to have the most force.
When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; his accusations of himself are always believed; his praises never.
Those sciences which govern the morals of mankind, such as Theology and Philosophy, make everything their concern: no activity is so private or so secret as to escape their attention or their jurisdiction.
I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more willfully obstinate.
We must reserve a back shop all our own entirely free, in which to establish our real liberty and our principal retreat and solitude.
Make use of life while you have it. Whether you have lived enough depends upon yourself, not on the number of your years.