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
The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold. The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.
In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is in conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life; and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.
My home...It is my retreat and resting place from wars, I try to keep this corner as a haven against the tempest outside, as I do another corner in my soul.
The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly.
The same reason that makes us chide and brawl and fall out with any of our neighbors, causeth a war to follow between Princes.
A foreign war is a lot milder than a civil war.
We seem ambitious God's whole work to undo. ...With new diseases on ourselves we war, And with new physic, a worse engine far.
Tis so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so.
It's not victory if it doesn't end the war.
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.