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
Nature has, herself, I fear, imprinted in man a kind of instinct to inhumanity.
I aim here only at revealing myself, who will perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me.
I would rather be an expert on me than on Cicero
There is no such thing as an altogether ugly woman - nor altogether beautiful.
Report followeth not all goodness, except difficulty and rarity be joined thereto.
Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.
Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.
Men are nothing until they are excited.
Men are nothing until they are excited.
Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.
I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future.
There are no truths, only moments of claryty passing for answers.
I listen with attention to the judgment of all men; but so far as I can remember, I have followed none but my own.
To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere." "To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.