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 worthy men have we known to survive their own reputation, who have seen and suffered the honor and glory most justly acquired in their youth, extinguished in their own presence?
There is no so wretched and coarse a soul wherein some particular faculty is not seen to shine.
A man must not always tell all, for that be folly; but what a man says should be what he thinks.
I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.
The most useful and honorable science and occupation for a woman is the science of housekeeping. I know some that are miserly, very few that are good managers.
It is an injustice that an old, broken, half-dead father should enjoy alone, in a corner of his hearth, possessions that would suffice for the advancement and maintenance of many children.
This very Rome that we behold deserves our love ...: the only common and universal city.
We imagine much more appropriately an artisan on his toilet seat or on his wife than a great president, venerable by his demeanorand his ability. It seems to us that they do not stoop from their lofty thrones even to live.
It is the part of cowardliness, and not of virtue, to seek to squat itself in some hollow lurking hole, or to hide herself under some massive tomb, thereby to shun the strokes of fortune.
Repentance is but a denying of our will, and an opposition of our fantasies.
No profession or occupation is more pleasing than the military; a profession or exercise both noble in execution (for the strongest, most generous and proudest of all virtues is true valor) and noble in its cause. No utility either more just or universal than the protection of the repose or defense of the greatness of one's country. The company and daily conversation of so many noble, young and active men cannot but be well-pleasing to you.
Others form man; I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed, whom I should really make very different from whathe is if I had to fashion him over again. But now it is done.
Taking it all in all, I find it is more trouble to watch after money than to get it.
I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.