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
Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are found and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing.
There is no passion so much transports the sincerity of judgment as doth anger
Why did I love her? Because it was her; because it was me.
Is it not a noble farce, where kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?
All general judgments are loose and imperfect
Only he can judge of matters great and high whose soul is likewise.
"Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation." -If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than it was because he was he and I was I.
Habituation puts to sleep the eye of our judgment.
Plenty and indigence depend upon the opinion every one has of them; and riches, like glory of health, have no more beauty or pleasure than their possessor is pleaded to lend them.
God defend me from being an honest man according to the description which every day I see made by each man to his own glorification
The memory represents to us not what we choose but what it pleases.
Happiness involves working toward meaningful goals.
The finest lives in my opinion are the common model, without miracle and without extravagance.
For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits.