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
Necessity is a violent school-mistress.
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
The world is but a school of inquisition; it is not who shall enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses.
True it is that she who escapeth safe and unpolluted from out the school of freedom, giveth more confidence of herself than she who comet sound out of the school of severity and restraint.
A man must always study, but he must not always go to school: what a contemptible thing is an old abecedarian!
I put forward formless and unresolved notions, as do those who publish doubtful questions to debate in the schools, not to establish the truth but to seek it.
Custom is a violent and treacherous school mistress. She, by little and lithe, slyly and unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority; but having by this gentle and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we have no more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes.
In order always to learn something from others (which is the finest school there can be), I observe in my travels this practice: I always steer those with whom I talk back to the things they know best.
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.
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.