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
How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
Everything must not always be said, for that would be folly.
Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to.
It is fear that I stand most in fear of, in sharpness it exceeds every other feeling.
The desire for riches is more sharpened by their use than by their need. Pleasing all: a mark that can never be aimed at or hit.
Who so hath his mind on taking, hath it no more on what he taketh.
The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.
An able reader often discovers in other people's writings perfections beyond those that the author put in or perceived, and lends them richer meanings and aspects.
There is the name and the thing; the name is a sound which sets a mark on and denotes the thing. The name is no part of the thing nor of the substance; it is an extraneous piece added to the thing, and outside of it.
I set forth notions that are human and my own, simply as human notions considered in themselves, not as determined and decreed by heavenly ordinance.
Whenever a new finding is reported to the world people say - It is probably not true. Later on, when the reliability of a new finding has been fully confirmed, people say - OK, it may be true but it has no real significance. At last, when even the significance of the finding is obvious to everybody, people say - Well, it might have some significance, but the idea is not new.
I determine nothing; I do not comprehend things; I suspend judgment; I examine.
Lawyers and physicians are an ill provision for any country.