Michel de Montaigne
French essayist and philosopher (1533 to 1592); mayor of Bordeaux; author of the Essays, in three books.
Michel de Montaigne did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Our reading
Learning to die is learning to be free; whoever has learned to die has unlearned servitude
Their wordsWhere death waits for us is uncertain; let us look for him everywhere. The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learned to die has unlearned to serve.
↗Essays (tr. Charles Cotton, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1877)gutenberg.org 1st of 8 in this piece
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Their wordsNow, to return to my subject, I find that there is nothing barbarous and savage in this nation, by anything that I can gather, excepting, that every one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.
↗Essays (tr. Charles Cotton, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1877)gutenberg.org 2nd of 8 in this piece
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Their wordsThe greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is his own.
↗Essays (tr. Charles Cotton, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1877)gutenberg.org 3rd of 8 in this piece
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Our reading
Their wordsAmongst other vices, I mortally hate cruelty, both by nature and judgment, as the very extreme of all vices: nay, with so much tenderness that I cannot see a chicken’s neck pulled off without trouble, and cannot without impatience endure the cry of a hare in my dog’s teeth, though the chase be a violent pleasure.
↗Essays (tr. Charles Cotton, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1877)gutenberg.org 4th of 8 in this piece
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Our reading
A person playing with a cat cannot know whether they amuse the cat more than it amuses them
Their wordsWhen I play with my cat who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me? We mutually divert one another with our play.
↗Essays (tr. Charles Cotton, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1877)gutenberg.org 5th of 8 in this piece
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Their wordsI propose a life ordinary and without lustre: ‘tis all one; all moral philosophy may as well be applied to a common and private life, as to one of richer composition: every man carries the entire form of human condition.
↗Essays (tr. Charles Cotton, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1877)gutenberg.org 6th of 8 in this piece
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Their wordsThere is no desire more natural than that of knowledge.
↗Essays (tr. Charles Cotton, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1877)gutenberg.org 7th of 8 in this piece
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Their words‘Tis to much purpose to go upon stilts, for, when upon stilts, we must yet walk with our legs; and when seated upon the most elevated throne in the world, we are but seated upon our breech. The fairest lives, in my opinion, are those which regularly accommodate themselves to the common and human model without miracle, without extravagance.
↗Essays (tr. Charles Cotton, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1877)gutenberg.org 8th of 8 in this piece
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