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
I aim here only at revealing myself, who will perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me.
My appetite comes to me while eating.
It takes so much to be a king that he exists only as such. That extraneous glare that surrounds him hides him and conceals him from us; our sight breaks and is dissipated by it being filled and arrested by this strong light.
I will follow the right side even to the fire, but excluding the fire if I can.
I walk firmer and more secure uphill than down.
A man is not hurt so much by what happens, as by his opinion of what happens.
There is nothing on which men are commonly more intent than on making a way for their opinions.
He who would teach men to die would teach them to live.
Miracles arise from our ignorance of nature, not from nature itself.
I have never known a greater miracle, or monster, than myself.
If you have known how to compose your life, you have done a great deal more than the person who knows how to compose a book. You have done more than the one who has taken cities and empires.
Who does not in some sort live to others, does not live much to himself.
In plain truth, lying is an accursed vice. We are not men, nor have any other tie upon another, but by our word.
When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me? When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me? When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not more of a pastime to her than she is to me?