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 recognition of virtue is not less valuable from the lips of the man who hates it, since truth forces him to acknowledge it; and though he may be unwilling to take it into his inmost soul, he at least decks himself out in its trappings.
The archer who overshoots his mark does no better than he who falls short of it.
I consider it equal injustice to set our heart against natural pleasures and to set our heart too much on them. We should neither pursue them, nor flee them; we should accept them.
When I was young, beautiful ancient statues were castrated, so that the eye might not be corrupted.... Nothing was gained, unless horses and asses had also been castrated.
Socrates, who was a perfect model in all great qualities, ... hit on a body and face so ugly and so incongruous with the beauty of his soul, he who was so madly in love with beauty.
It is not my deeds that I write down, it is myself, my essence.
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.
I would rather produce my passions than brood over them at my expense; they grow languid when they have vent and expression. It is better that their point should operate outwardly than be turned against us.
We do not marry for ourselves, whatever we say; we marry just as much or more for our posterity, for our family. The practice and benefit of marriage concerns our race very far beyond us.
A good marriage ... is a sweet association in life: full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of useful and solid services and mutual obligations.
Vexations may be petty, but they are vexations still.
We took advantage of [the Indians'] ignorance and inexperience to incline them the more easily toward treachery, lewdness, avarice, and every sort of inhumanity and cruelty, after the example and pattern of our ways.
I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it.
We have the pleasures suitable to our lot; let us not usurp those of greatness. Ours are more natural and all the more solid and sure for being humbler. Since we will not do so out of conscience, at least out of ambition let us reject ambition.