The Philosopher
Michel de Montaigne
The face
The background
- Nationality:
- French
- Schools:
- Counter-Reformation, French Renaissance, Nouveaux Pyrrhonism, Renaissance humanism, Renaissance skepticism
- Period:
- Renaissance
The synopsis
Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne, commonly known as Michel de Montaigne, was a significant philosopher of the French Renaissance, renowned for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. His work is distinguished by its fusion of casual anecdotes and autobiography with profound intellectual insight. Montaigne's writings have had a substantial impact on numerous Western literary figures. His collection, the *Essais*, contains some of the most influential essays ever produced. During his lifetime, Montaigne was primarily recognized for his statesmanship rather than his literary contributions. The digressive nature of his essays, filled with personal reflections, was initially perceived as a stylistic flaw, and his self-referential approach, stating 'I am myself the matter of my book,' was considered self-indulgent by his contemporaries. However, over time, Montaigne gained recognition for embodying the spirit of critical thinking and open inquiry that characterized the emerging intellectual climate. He is famously associated with the skeptical remark, 'Que sçay-je?' ('What do I know?'). Born on February 28, 1533, at the Château de Montaigne in Guyenne, France, he died on September 13, 1592, at the same estate, aged 59. His philosophical work is situated within the era of Renaissance philosophy and 16th-century philosophy, belonging to the Western philosophy tradition. He is associated with schools of thought such as Counter-Reformation, French Renaissance, Nouveaux Pyrrhonism, Renaissance humanism, and Renaissance skepticism. His main interests included Christianity, classical studies, ethics, human nature, pedagogy, philosophy of science, poetry, political history, sociability, and virtue.
The works
Essais
Theologia naturalis
Prologue to Raymond Sebond's Theologia naturalis
The quotes
A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.
If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love.
A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics.
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.
In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum.
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.
When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.
I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man's estate.
The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly.
Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind than it does on the face.
It is an absolute and virtually divine perfection to know how to enjoy our being rightfully.
Confidence in others' honesty is no light testimony of one's own integrity.
Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.
Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.
He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.
Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one's own goodness.
Ambition is not a vice of little people.
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do.
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.
Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
There is no passion so contagious as that of fear.
One may be humble out of pride.
There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to.
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.
It is a monstrous thing that I will say, but I will say it all the same: I find in many things more restraint and order in my morals than in my opinions, and my lust less depraved than my reason.
Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.
The world is but a perpetual see-saw.
My trade and art is to live.
The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.
I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.
The strangest, most generous, and proudest of all virtues is true courage.
If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. A spirited mind never stops within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength.
Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem. The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream.
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance.
Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.
Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet - the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.