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
... whoever believes anything esteems that it is a work of charity to persuade another of it.
The human face is a weak guarantee; yet it deserves some consideration. And if I had to whip the wicked, I would do so more severely to those who belied and betrayed the promises that nature had implanted on their brows; I would punish malice more harshly when it was hidden under a kindly appearance.
In my youth I studied for ostentation; later, a little to gain wisdom; now, for recreation; never for gain.
Whatever I may be, I want to be elsewhere than on paper. My art and my industry have been employed in making myself good for something; my studies, in teaching me to do, not to write. I have put all my efforts into forming my life. That is my trade and my work.
I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it.
We have the pleasures suitable to our lot; let us not usurp those of greatness. Ours are more natural and all the more solid and sure for being humbler. Since we will not do so out of conscience, at least out of ambition let us reject ambition.
If these Essays were worthy of being judged, it might fall out, in my opinion, that they would not find much favour, either with common and vulgar minds, or with uncommon and eminent ones: the former would not find enough in them, the latter would find too much; they might manage to live somewhere in the middle region.
Is it not enough to make me come back to life out of spite, to have someone who spat in my face while I existed come and rub my feet when I am beginning to exist no longer?
All opinions in the world agree in this, that pleasure is our end, although they differ as to the means of attaining it.
What fear has once made me will, I am bound still to will when without fear.
I am much afraid that we shall have very greatly hastened the decline and ruin of the New World by our contagion, and that we willhave sold it our opinions and our arts very dear.
Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him.
Our own peculiar human condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh.
Might I have had my own will, I would not have married Wisdom herself, if she would have had me.