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
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.
To smell, though well, is to stink.
Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it; reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and nobody obeys it.
But as Nature is the best guide, teaching must be the development of natural inclinations, for which purpose the teacher must watch his pupil and listen to him, not continually bawl words into his ears as if pouring water into a funnel. Good teaching will come from a mind well made rather than well filled.
All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate.
If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.
How often, being moved under a false cause, if the person offending makes a good defense and presents us with a just excuse, are we angry against truth and innocence itself?
Men ... are not agreed about any one thing, not even that heaven is over our heads.