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
Of all human and ancient opinions concerning religion, that seems to me the most likely and most excusable, that acknowledged God as an incomprehensible power, the original and preserver of all things, all goodness, all perfection, receiving and taking in good part the honour and reverence that man paid him, under what method, name, or ceremonies soever.
Nothing prints more lively in our minds than something we wish to forget.
I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.
'Tis the sharpness of our mind that gives the edge to our pains and pleasures.
I have seen people rude by being over-polite.
If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.
One may be humble out of pride.
A volunteer, you assign yourself specific roles and risks according to your judgement of their brilliance and importance, and you see when life itself may be justifiably devoted to them.
There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.
I turn my gaze inward. I fix it there and keep it busy. I look inside myself. I continually observe myself.
I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.
A foreign war is a lot milder than a civil war.
Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.
Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.