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
As far as I am concerned, no road that would lead us to health is either arduous or expensive.
There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.
Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream.
Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.
No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
The religion of my doctor or my lawyer cannot matter. That consideration has nothing in common with the functions of the friendship they owe me.
Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.
The world is but a perennial movement. All things in it are in constant motion-the earth, the rocks of the Caucasus, the pyramids of Egypt-both with the common motion and with their own.
The curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge.
Nature should have been pleased to have made this age miserable, without making it also ridiculous.
All the fame you should look for in life is to have lived it quietly.
All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.