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
It is equally pointless to weep because we won't be alive a hundred years from now as that we were not here a hundred years ago.
Long life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.
The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.
No man dies before his hour. The time you leave behind was no more yours, than that which was before your birth, and concerneth you no more.
Like a full-fed guest, depart to rest ...
Death, they say, acquits us of all obligations.
To philosophize is nothing else than to prepare oneself for death.
If I were a maker of books I should compile a register, with comments, of different deaths. He who should teach people to die, would teach them to live.
I agree that we should work and prolong the functions of life as far as we can, and hope that Death may find me planting my cabbages, but indifferent to him and still more to the unfinished state of my garden.
We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.
I want death to find me planting my cabbages.
If you don't know how to die, don't worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.
One should be ever booted and spurred and ready to depart.
God is favorable to those whom he makes to die by degrees; 'tis the only benefit of old age. The last death will be so much the less painful: it will kill but a quarter of a man or but half a one at most.