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
No man divulges his revenue, or at least which way it comes in: but every one publishes his acquisitions.
Their [the Skeptics'] way of speaking is: "I settle nothing. . . . I do not understand it. . . . Nothing seems true that may not seem false." Their sacramental word is . . . , which is to say, I suspend my judgment.
Let us a little permit nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we.
If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.
He who remembers the evils he has undergone, and those that have threatened him, and the slight causes that have changed him from one state to another, prepares himself in that way for future changes and for recognizing his condition. The life of Caesar has no more to show us than our own; an emperor's or an ordinary man's, it is still a life subject to all human accidents.
To make a crooked stick straight, we bend it the contrary way.
The shortest way to arrive at glory would be to do that for conscience which we do for glory.
Thus we should beware of clinging to vulgar opinions, and judge things by reason's way, not by popular say.
Whether the events in our life are good or bad, greatly depends on the way we perceive them.
Virtue rejects facility to be her companion. She requires a craggy, rough and thorny way.
Repentance is no other than a recanting of the will, and opposition to our fancies, which lead us which way they please.
The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.
All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.
There are few things on which we can pass a sincere judgement, because there are few things in which we have not, in one way or another, a particular interest.