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
L'homme est bien insensé. Il ne saurait forger un ciron, et forge des Dieux à douzaines. Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen.
God sends the cold according to the coat.
To honor him whom we have made is far from honoring him that hath made us.
Lying is a terrible vice, it testifies that one despises God, but fears men.
The confidence in another man's virtue is no light evidence of a man's own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.
Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm or a flea and yet will create Gods by the dozen!
Man will rise, if God by exception lends him a hand; he will rise by abandoning and renouncing his own means, and letting himselfbe raised and uplifted by purely celestial means.
Now there cannot be first principles for men, unless the Divinity has revealed them; all the rest--beginning, middle, and end--isnothing but dreams and smoke.
The share we have in the knowledge of truth, such as it is, has not been acquired by our own powers. God has taught ushis wonderful secrets; our faith is not of our acquiring, it is purely the gift of another's bounty.
There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge.
We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.
He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.
If a man urge me to tell wherefore I loved him, I feel it cannot be expressed but by answering: Because it was he, because it was myself.