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
Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures.
Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm or a flea and yet will create Gods by the dozen!
Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.
I enjoy books as misers enjoy treasures, because I know I can enjoy them whenever I please.
Pride and curiosity are the two scourges of our souls. The latter prompts us to poke our noses into everything, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved and undecided.
[Marriage] happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.
My business is only to keep myself in motion, whilst motion pleases me; I only walk for the walk's sake.
I speak to the paper, as I speak to the first person I meet.
It is putting a very high price on one's conjectures to have someone roasted alive on their account.
It is not reasonable that art should win the place of honor over our great and powerful mother Nature. We have so overloaded the beauty and richness of her works by our inventions that we have quite smothered her.
Man (in good earnest) is a marvellous vain, fickle, and unstable subject, and on whom it is very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment.
And therefore, Reader, I myself am the subject of my book: it is not reasonable that you should employ your leisure on a topic so frivolous and so vain. Therefore, Farewell:
That is why Bias jested with those who were going through the perils of a great storm with him and calling on the gods for help: "Shut up," he said, "so that they do not realize that you are here with me.
Whoever will be cured of ignorance, let him confess it.