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Selected Essays
In laying the literary groundwork for the development of the essay, French writer and thinker Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) presented to the world a complete self-portrait — physical, emotional, and intellectual — that was also a mirror in which humanity as a whole found itself reflected. His early essays contained strong elements of stoicism and skepticism, while later efforts indicate a greater balance and an acceptance of nature, with an unflinching openness to new ideas and a willingness to examine impartially the foundations of accepted customs and values. Now readers can sample the vigor and penetration of Montaigne's thought in this selection of eight of his best essays: "Of Friendship," "Of Books," "Of Cruelty," "Of Repentance," "Of Three Commerces," "Of Solitude," "Of the Inequality Amongst Us," and "That It Is Folly to Measure Truth and Error by Our Own Capacity." This edition uses the classic Charles Cotton translation.
96 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2011
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About the author
Michel de Montaigne
1,732 books1,587 followersMichel Eyquem de Montaigne (1532-1592) was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance. Montaigne is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes and autobiography—and his massive volume Essais (translated literally as "Attempts") contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers the world over, from William Shakespeare to René Descartes, from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Stephan Zweig, from Friedrich Nietzsche to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He was a conservative and earnest Catholic but, as a result of his anti-dogmatic cast of mind, he is considered the father, alongside his contemporary and intimate friend Étienne de La Boétie, of the "anti-conformist" tradition in French literature.
In his own time, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman then as an author. The tendency in his essays to digress into anecdotes and personal ruminations was seen as detrimental to proper style rather than as an innovation, and his declaration that, "I am myself the matter of my book", was viewed by his contemporaries as self-indulgent. In time, however, Montaigne would be recognized as embodying, perhaps better than any other author of his time, the spirit of freely entertaining doubt which began to emerge at that time. He is most famously known for his skeptical remark, "Que sais-je?" ("What do I know?").
Remarkably modern even to readers today, Montaigne's attempt to examine the world through the lens of the only thing he can depend on implicitly—his own judgment—makes him more accessible to modern readers than any other author of the Renaissance. Much of modern literary nonfiction has found inspiration in Montaigne, and writers of all kinds continue to read him for his masterful balance of intellectual knowledge and personal storytelling.
In his own time, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman then as an author. The tendency in his essays to digress into anecdotes and personal ruminations was seen as detrimental to proper style rather than as an innovation, and his declaration that, "I am myself the matter of my book", was viewed by his contemporaries as self-indulgent. In time, however, Montaigne would be recognized as embodying, perhaps better than any other author of his time, the spirit of freely entertaining doubt which began to emerge at that time. He is most famously known for his skeptical remark, "Que sais-je?" ("What do I know?").
Remarkably modern even to readers today, Montaigne's attempt to examine the world through the lens of the only thing he can depend on implicitly—his own judgment—makes him more accessible to modern readers than any other author of the Renaissance. Much of modern literary nonfiction has found inspiration in Montaigne, and writers of all kinds continue to read him for his masterful balance of intellectual knowledge and personal storytelling.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 181 reviews
August 11, 2016
So now, on this journey of self-education, we arrive at Montaigne, the instrospective French essayist who was both devout papist and syphilitic whore-master. This is exactly the type of internal conflict that I like in a philosopher and avoid in, say, a husband or a physician or what have you.
Of all the reading I've done in the past two years, Montaigne has taken up the most space in my copybook. I wrote down things he said that supported my biases and I wrote down things that challenged them. For instance, here he agrees with my bias against burning people at the stake for heresy:
"After all, it is to put a very high value on your surmise to roast a man alive for them."
While here he takes a firmer stance than I have taken against the questionable literary taste of young pupils:
"Were our pupil's disposition so bizarre that he would rather hear a tall tale than the account of a great voyage or a wise discussion...I know no remedy except that his tutor should quickly strangle him when nobody is looking."
Lately, this has spoken to me:
"Others never see you: they surmise about you from uncertain conjectures; they do not see your nature so much as your artifice. So do not cling to their sentence: cling to your own."
As has this:
"Sometimes it is the bravest who may prove most unlucky...True victory lies in your role in the conflict, not in coming through safely: it consists in the honour of battling bravely, not battling through."
I could not be more persuasive in getting you to read Montaigne than Montaigne himself. Which is why I've let him do most of this review.
Of all the reading I've done in the past two years, Montaigne has taken up the most space in my copybook. I wrote down things he said that supported my biases and I wrote down things that challenged them. For instance, here he agrees with my bias against burning people at the stake for heresy:
"After all, it is to put a very high value on your surmise to roast a man alive for them."
While here he takes a firmer stance than I have taken against the questionable literary taste of young pupils:
"Were our pupil's disposition so bizarre that he would rather hear a tall tale than the account of a great voyage or a wise discussion...I know no remedy except that his tutor should quickly strangle him when nobody is looking."
Lately, this has spoken to me:
"Others never see you: they surmise about you from uncertain conjectures; they do not see your nature so much as your artifice. So do not cling to their sentence: cling to your own."
As has this:
"Sometimes it is the bravest who may prove most unlucky...True victory lies in your role in the conflict, not in coming through safely: it consists in the honour of battling bravely, not battling through."
I could not be more persuasive in getting you to read Montaigne than Montaigne himself. Which is why I've let him do most of this review.
February 17, 2023
[3.5] Reading a few Montaigne essays each morning is not a bad way to start the day. He doesn't grapple with the meaning of life, but sets forth his ideas on how to live with essays like "Of Sorrow," "Of Liars," "Of Friendship," "Of Cruelty." In an easygoing manner, Montaigne questions everything and then celebrates man's imperfection.
Reading a couple dozen essays was enough for me. For centuries, Montaigne has helped readers' better understand their lives. For me, reading him merely satisfied my curiosity.
Reading a couple dozen essays was enough for me. For centuries, Montaigne has helped readers' better understand their lives. For me, reading him merely satisfied my curiosity.
June 19, 2019
The hardest part of this book is knowing that you'll never be able to have Montaigne for a friend.
There is such a huge variety of insight, interesting digressions, humour that a little goodreads review cant really do it justice. There is an eclectic nature to this book which makes it somewhat difficult to read quickly but makes it a truly fantastic book to keep at your bedside and chip away at over time.
There is such a huge variety of insight, interesting digressions, humour that a little goodreads review cant really do it justice. There is an eclectic nature to this book which makes it somewhat difficult to read quickly but makes it a truly fantastic book to keep at your bedside and chip away at over time.
April 26, 2026
“Essay,” as a verb, means “to try.” When you write an essay, you are trying out an idea through the act of writing, and you are seeing where it all takes you. This simple truth may not mean much to the millions of undergraduate students, throughout the United States of America and around the world, who are sweating their way through essays that they don’t want to write but feel they have to write, in hopes of getting one step closer to fulfilling their professional ambitions. What a salutary thing it would be if the great French essayist Michel de Montaigne – the man who, in many ways, invented the modern essay – could appear before those students and talk about the essay with them. An essay, Montaigne would no doubt say, is not about getting a grade from a professor; it’s about trying out an idea - for the idea's sake, and for your own.
Montaigne, who lived from 1533 to 1592, was among the pre-eminent philosophers of the French Renaissance. Born into a wealthy family, and educated in the traditions of classical humanism that were taking hold in those post-medieval times, Montaigne brought his education and talent into public life, serving as a court councilman in Dordogne and Bordeaux. He later served in the court of King Charles IX, and he accompanied the king to the siege of Rouen, an important engagement in that era’s wars of religion. He was named a member of the Order of Saint Michael – the highest honour available to a member of the French nobility.
Yet he is best remembered not for his achievements as a statesman, but for his authorship of the Essais or Essays (1580). Montaigne did not invent the essay, of course; Marcus Tullius Cicero was writing essays like “On the Orator” more than 1500 years before Montaigne ever drew breath. But what Montaigne did was give the essay a direct-address quality that was both personal and personable. Montaigne wrote in the first person, talked about his own experiences, made his life story part of whatever he was writing about. It may have seemed “too personal” for some of his contemporaries, but Montaigne’s Essays have been delighting and inspiring readers round the world for almost five centuries now.
Montaigne’s talent for mixing the personal and the universal can be seen in an essay like “On Solitude.” By the time the Essays were published, Montaigne was 47 years old. Considering that the average life expectancy in France in the 16th century was only about 25 to 30 years of age, Montaigne knew that he had to be on the downslope of life; he had also experienced some painful health problems (about which more later). All of these considerations may do much to explain the valedictory manner in which he presents his argument. Engagement in life, Montaigne tells us, is necessary for young people who can dedicate their considerable energies to the betterment of all. Older people, by contrast, have not only the right but also the duty to seek out solitude:
It seems to me that solitude is more reasonable and right for those who, following the example of Thales, have devoted to the world their more active, vigorous years. [Thales of Miletus was a Greek philosopher of the 6th century B.C., whose embrace of rationalism and science made life better for people in his city-state and beyond]. We have lived quite enough for others: let us live at least this tail-end of life for ourselves….It is time to slip our knots with society now that we can contribute nothing to it. A man with nothing to lend should refrain from borrowing. Our powers are failing: let us draw them in and keep them within ourselves. (p. 101)
In that connection, Montaigne quotes the Roman rhetorician Quintilian: “Rarum est enim ut salis se quisque vereatur” (“It is rare for anyone to respect himself enough”) (p. 101). Montaigne incorporates his considerable erudition into these essays in a way that is gentle and unforced – enhancing the persuasive power of his work.
I mentioned earlier that illness, serious illness, entered Montaigne’s life and affected what he wrote in the Essays, and now seems a good time to talk of these sad things. In 1578, Montaigne, who had enjoyed good health throughout 45 years of life, suddenly began to suffer from kidney stones. Anyone who has been diagnosed with nephrolithiasis (renal calculi) knows how horribly painful the condition is. Nowadays, treatment options include shock-wave lithotripsy and ureteroscopy, along with medications like nifedipine; but such treatment options did not exist in 1578. All the patient could do was suffer, wait, and hope for some measure of eventual relief.
In “On the Resemblance of Children to Their Fathers,” he writes about when he developed kidney stones – what he calls “colic paroxysms.” He writes that “Of all the misfortunes of old age, that was precisely the very one I most dreaded.” He calls it “the worst of all illnesses, the most unpredictable, the most painful, the most fatal, and the most incurable. I have already assayed five or six very long and painful attacks” (p. 203).
Yet in the midst of his affliction he can still wax philosophical, saying to himself, “What a prodigious thing it is that, within the drop of semen that brings us forth, there are stamped the characteristics not only of the bodily form our forefathers but also of their ways of thinking and their slant of mind.” What gets him thinking about what children inherit from their parents, in terms of what we nowadays would call genetics, is that “We can assume that it is to my father that I owe my propensity to the stone, for he died dreadfully afflicted by a large stone in the bladder.”
Montaigne tells us that he was born when his father was 25 years old, and that his father did not become ill with kidney stones until age 67. These reflections get Montaigne asking all sorts of questions:
During all that time [between age 25 and age 67], where did that propensity for this affliction lie a-brooding? When his own illness was so far off, how did that little piece of his own substance that went to make me manage to transmit so marked a characteristic to me? And how was it so hidden that I only began to be aware of it 45 years later – so far, the only one to do so out of many brothers and sisters, all from the same mother? (p. 207) In the midst of his affliction, Montaigne still engages in philosophical inquiry.
When I said earlier in this review that Montaigne mixes the personal and the universal, I meant it. He holds nothing back! In “On Some Lines of Virgil,” Montaigne offers extensive (and, for the time, bold) reflections on human sexuality. (The reference list of works that he consulted in writing the essay is quite extensive.)
He is also interested in how society and culture influence the universal human experience of seeking love. With regard to courtship styles, Montaigne feels that “We French always make our last attack the first: there is always that impetuosity of ours.” By contrast, “For the Spaniard and the Italian, sex-love is more timid and respectful, more coy and less open: I like that” (p. 308).
As love and sex are so life-affirming, writing about these topics must have provided Montaigne with some welcome relief from the pain that he was experiencing because of his kidney stones. Serious illness almost always makes one contemplate the vulnerability of the human body and the end of life. When I was reading “On Experience,” I was impressed to see the equanimity with which Montaigne approaches the aging process and the inevitability of death:
God shows mercy to those from whom He takes away life a little at a time: that is the sole advantage of growing old; the last death that you die will be all the less total and painful: it will only be killing off half a man, or a quarter. Look: here is a tooth that has just fallen out with no effort or anguish; it had come to the natural terminus of its time. That part of my being, along with several other parts, is already dead: others are half-dead, including those that were, during the vigour of my youth, the most energetic and uppermost. That is how I drip and drain away from myself. What animal-stupidity it would be if my intellect took for the whole of that collapse the last topple of an already advanced decline. I hope that mine will not. (p. 407)
It was not just a matter of religious devotion – though Montaigne was devout enough that he took a copy of the Essays to the Vatican and submitted it to papal authorities, to see if there was anything in the work that might be considered objectionable. (Impressed, perhaps, by the literary quality and philosophical depth of the Essays, Vatican authorities gave the manuscript back to Montaigne, and told him to let his conscience be his guide.) For Montaigne, I think it was something more fundamental – a task that faces us all, whether we are devout or not.
Thinking about the meaning of life ultimately involves thinking about what the end of life means. A person looking back at their life will ask themselves what their life, fundamentally, has meant. "Has it made a difference," each of us might ask, "that I was ever here?"
I hope that, somehow, Michel de Montaigne has come to know how his essays have helped countless readers, over the last 400+ years, to live more meaningful lives. Montaigne’s volume of Essays is one of the most important books of humanist inquiry ever written.
Montaigne, who lived from 1533 to 1592, was among the pre-eminent philosophers of the French Renaissance. Born into a wealthy family, and educated in the traditions of classical humanism that were taking hold in those post-medieval times, Montaigne brought his education and talent into public life, serving as a court councilman in Dordogne and Bordeaux. He later served in the court of King Charles IX, and he accompanied the king to the siege of Rouen, an important engagement in that era’s wars of religion. He was named a member of the Order of Saint Michael – the highest honour available to a member of the French nobility.
Yet he is best remembered not for his achievements as a statesman, but for his authorship of the Essais or Essays (1580). Montaigne did not invent the essay, of course; Marcus Tullius Cicero was writing essays like “On the Orator” more than 1500 years before Montaigne ever drew breath. But what Montaigne did was give the essay a direct-address quality that was both personal and personable. Montaigne wrote in the first person, talked about his own experiences, made his life story part of whatever he was writing about. It may have seemed “too personal” for some of his contemporaries, but Montaigne’s Essays have been delighting and inspiring readers round the world for almost five centuries now.
Montaigne’s talent for mixing the personal and the universal can be seen in an essay like “On Solitude.” By the time the Essays were published, Montaigne was 47 years old. Considering that the average life expectancy in France in the 16th century was only about 25 to 30 years of age, Montaigne knew that he had to be on the downslope of life; he had also experienced some painful health problems (about which more later). All of these considerations may do much to explain the valedictory manner in which he presents his argument. Engagement in life, Montaigne tells us, is necessary for young people who can dedicate their considerable energies to the betterment of all. Older people, by contrast, have not only the right but also the duty to seek out solitude:
It seems to me that solitude is more reasonable and right for those who, following the example of Thales, have devoted to the world their more active, vigorous years. [Thales of Miletus was a Greek philosopher of the 6th century B.C., whose embrace of rationalism and science made life better for people in his city-state and beyond]. We have lived quite enough for others: let us live at least this tail-end of life for ourselves….It is time to slip our knots with society now that we can contribute nothing to it. A man with nothing to lend should refrain from borrowing. Our powers are failing: let us draw them in and keep them within ourselves. (p. 101)
In that connection, Montaigne quotes the Roman rhetorician Quintilian: “Rarum est enim ut salis se quisque vereatur” (“It is rare for anyone to respect himself enough”) (p. 101). Montaigne incorporates his considerable erudition into these essays in a way that is gentle and unforced – enhancing the persuasive power of his work.
I mentioned earlier that illness, serious illness, entered Montaigne’s life and affected what he wrote in the Essays, and now seems a good time to talk of these sad things. In 1578, Montaigne, who had enjoyed good health throughout 45 years of life, suddenly began to suffer from kidney stones. Anyone who has been diagnosed with nephrolithiasis (renal calculi) knows how horribly painful the condition is. Nowadays, treatment options include shock-wave lithotripsy and ureteroscopy, along with medications like nifedipine; but such treatment options did not exist in 1578. All the patient could do was suffer, wait, and hope for some measure of eventual relief.
In “On the Resemblance of Children to Their Fathers,” he writes about when he developed kidney stones – what he calls “colic paroxysms.” He writes that “Of all the misfortunes of old age, that was precisely the very one I most dreaded.” He calls it “the worst of all illnesses, the most unpredictable, the most painful, the most fatal, and the most incurable. I have already assayed five or six very long and painful attacks” (p. 203).
Yet in the midst of his affliction he can still wax philosophical, saying to himself, “What a prodigious thing it is that, within the drop of semen that brings us forth, there are stamped the characteristics not only of the bodily form our forefathers but also of their ways of thinking and their slant of mind.” What gets him thinking about what children inherit from their parents, in terms of what we nowadays would call genetics, is that “We can assume that it is to my father that I owe my propensity to the stone, for he died dreadfully afflicted by a large stone in the bladder.”
Montaigne tells us that he was born when his father was 25 years old, and that his father did not become ill with kidney stones until age 67. These reflections get Montaigne asking all sorts of questions:
During all that time [between age 25 and age 67], where did that propensity for this affliction lie a-brooding? When his own illness was so far off, how did that little piece of his own substance that went to make me manage to transmit so marked a characteristic to me? And how was it so hidden that I only began to be aware of it 45 years later – so far, the only one to do so out of many brothers and sisters, all from the same mother? (p. 207) In the midst of his affliction, Montaigne still engages in philosophical inquiry.
When I said earlier in this review that Montaigne mixes the personal and the universal, I meant it. He holds nothing back! In “On Some Lines of Virgil,” Montaigne offers extensive (and, for the time, bold) reflections on human sexuality. (The reference list of works that he consulted in writing the essay is quite extensive.)
He is also interested in how society and culture influence the universal human experience of seeking love. With regard to courtship styles, Montaigne feels that “We French always make our last attack the first: there is always that impetuosity of ours.” By contrast, “For the Spaniard and the Italian, sex-love is more timid and respectful, more coy and less open: I like that” (p. 308).
As love and sex are so life-affirming, writing about these topics must have provided Montaigne with some welcome relief from the pain that he was experiencing because of his kidney stones. Serious illness almost always makes one contemplate the vulnerability of the human body and the end of life. When I was reading “On Experience,” I was impressed to see the equanimity with which Montaigne approaches the aging process and the inevitability of death:
God shows mercy to those from whom He takes away life a little at a time: that is the sole advantage of growing old; the last death that you die will be all the less total and painful: it will only be killing off half a man, or a quarter. Look: here is a tooth that has just fallen out with no effort or anguish; it had come to the natural terminus of its time. That part of my being, along with several other parts, is already dead: others are half-dead, including those that were, during the vigour of my youth, the most energetic and uppermost. That is how I drip and drain away from myself. What animal-stupidity it would be if my intellect took for the whole of that collapse the last topple of an already advanced decline. I hope that mine will not. (p. 407)
It was not just a matter of religious devotion – though Montaigne was devout enough that he took a copy of the Essays to the Vatican and submitted it to papal authorities, to see if there was anything in the work that might be considered objectionable. (Impressed, perhaps, by the literary quality and philosophical depth of the Essays, Vatican authorities gave the manuscript back to Montaigne, and told him to let his conscience be his guide.) For Montaigne, I think it was something more fundamental – a task that faces us all, whether we are devout or not.
Thinking about the meaning of life ultimately involves thinking about what the end of life means. A person looking back at their life will ask themselves what their life, fundamentally, has meant. "Has it made a difference," each of us might ask, "that I was ever here?"
I hope that, somehow, Michel de Montaigne has come to know how his essays have helped countless readers, over the last 400+ years, to live more meaningful lives. Montaigne’s volume of Essays is one of the most important books of humanist inquiry ever written.
September 25, 2021
Um espírito extraordinariamente lúcido para a época em que viveu.
January 23, 2011
Alas, Real Life has intruded, and I had to cut short my acquaintance with M. Montaigne. I had mixed feelings about this, much like you have mixed feelings about a friend coming to save you from a fascinating person you've just met at a party- one with rather a high opinion of himself that he isn't shy of airing, but one that might possibly be well-justified. In a conversation with this person, you might find yourself bereft of something to say to him after the fifth or sixth time his cliche-filled comments nonetheless leave you with only, "Well.. that's one way to look at it," to say.. instead of "Who the eff does this guy think he is?"
Montaigne may sound like a college freshmen high on his first Philosophy 101 class sometimes, but he was possibly the first guy to express himself that way. It can read as douchey now, but I think even with that, he manages to weave in enough of an interesting story to make it compelling reading. I also don't think the impression of him as an immature man lasts all that long- he expresses enough of living here that he has something to offer adult readers as well as those still in formation. His essay "On Books" in particular is memorable and brilliant (though take that with a grain of salt, from a bibliophile), and I recommend getting your hands on just that essay if possible. He can also be wonderfully self-deprecating and wise, humble and brutal in his own self-examination- he's apt to dismiss emotional problems with an Oscar Wilde like witty line like a flick of the wrist, a sensibility that is remarkably modern. He's a man of his time with all the prejudices that entails (including those against women and about religion), but it is the way he thinks about things and frames problems that will be familiar to the modern reader.
Montaigne may sound like a college freshmen high on his first Philosophy 101 class sometimes, but he was possibly the first guy to express himself that way. It can read as douchey now, but I think even with that, he manages to weave in enough of an interesting story to make it compelling reading. I also don't think the impression of him as an immature man lasts all that long- he expresses enough of living here that he has something to offer adult readers as well as those still in formation. His essay "On Books" in particular is memorable and brilliant (though take that with a grain of salt, from a bibliophile), and I recommend getting your hands on just that essay if possible. He can also be wonderfully self-deprecating and wise, humble and brutal in his own self-examination- he's apt to dismiss emotional problems with an Oscar Wilde like witty line like a flick of the wrist, a sensibility that is remarkably modern. He's a man of his time with all the prejudices that entails (including those against women and about religion), but it is the way he thinks about things and frames problems that will be familiar to the modern reader.
March 18, 2024
Ik vind dat ik hem uit heb😗
January 17, 2025
2025 re-read : I have spent almost a month re-reading this book, which for me is a long time. That though is not a reflection that I did not enjoy this, but that it is one of those books that can be dipped in and out of and savoured. Montaigne wanders around talking about everything and anything - from the prosaic, such as his bowel movements, to the everyday, such as doctors and medicine, to the profound, such as the meaning of life. Always erudite, often amusing, occasionally disagreeable - but always a pleasure. I think I would have rated him 5 stars now, but I've not changed my original review rating. Perhaps I will if I ever read it again!
On that note, I think there will be one more reading (so my 4th). That shows how much I value this book. But hopefully next time I may challenge myself not with these 400 odd pages of the selection, but the full 1300 pages of the full edition. Though perhaps not in paperback. For whilst I actually prefer reading paperbacks to hardbacks, when a book reaches that length I find the paperback struggles to physically hold together.
original 2016 review : A great rambling journey of introspection, but like the best of introspective writing the lessons, ideas and topics Montaigne travels through have universal appeal. Here is a man who in one section can read like a modern liberal, and in another very much a man of his time. It is my second reading of this translation, and as so many times with translations I regret my feeble language skills and wonder how much better it might have been in French. A worthy book to dip into time and again.
On that note, I think there will be one more reading (so my 4th). That shows how much I value this book. But hopefully next time I may challenge myself not with these 400 odd pages of the selection, but the full 1300 pages of the full edition. Though perhaps not in paperback. For whilst I actually prefer reading paperbacks to hardbacks, when a book reaches that length I find the paperback struggles to physically hold together.
original 2016 review : A great rambling journey of introspection, but like the best of introspective writing the lessons, ideas and topics Montaigne travels through have universal appeal. Here is a man who in one section can read like a modern liberal, and in another very much a man of his time. It is my second reading of this translation, and as so many times with translations I regret my feeble language skills and wonder how much better it might have been in French. A worthy book to dip into time and again.
September 17, 2014
It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to enjoy our being lawfully. We seek other conditions because we do not understand the use of our own, and go outside of ourselves because we do not know what it is like inside. Yet there is no use our mounting on stilts, for on stilts we must still walk on our legs. And on the loftiest throne in the world we are still sitting only on our own rear.
“It seemed to me as if I had written the book in some former life, so sincerely it spoke to my thought and experience,” wrote Emerson of his first encounter with Montaigne’s essays. And, indeed, I feel that I could copy and paste my review of the works of Emerson here and amend it as needed, perhaps splicing in a few sections of my thoughts on Whitman as well (for he too embraced a similar sort of “tolerant individualism,” as the translator of this work – Donald Frame – calls it). And, as Thoreau said of Whitman, there is something also “wonderfully Oriental” in his philosophies. As with Emerson these essays sometimes are prone to meandering, and rather than taking us directly to some wisdom Montaigne gives us a scenic tour of his mind, and it is at these moments that he seems most relaxed and perhaps most enjoyable. As with both Emerson and Whitman there is a tolerance to these essays, an egoism (and also an interest in the general well-being and progress of humanity), an embrace of relativism and of healthy skepticism (“Only the fools are certain and assured”) and, we also find a man with many layers and contradictions, for he, like these two later writers, was of the belief that “Each man bears the entire form of human nature.”
Montaigne is often credited with pioneering the essay as a literary form and his essays are at times extremely personal, for he opens these essays with a note to the reader which begins: “This is an honest book, reader. . . I am myself the matter of my book.” And for this alone, perhaps, he deserves to be read. He deserves to be read though too because of the breadth of what he has to say. As laid out in the introduction to this book, “‘If people realized,’ writes Christopher Morley, ‘that almost everything conceivably sayable has been said in Montaigne, why should they ever buy a new book?’ Every age has found something—and something new—in the Essays.” Indeed, one could probably read these essays again and again and find something new and more worthwhile on each reading. They are fresh and easy to read even more than 400 years later (and very funny too), for Montaigne taps into eternal truths in his writing (and in this there is longevity). For as much as we may feel that we have changed, with our computers and smartphones, with modern medicine and airplanes, the human condition is still very much the same as it was not only 400 years ago but going back to the ancient Greeks (who Montaigne is so fond of quoting) and even earlier. We may have eradicated certain diseases and made the world smaller through globalization (for better or worse), but the problems of the human soul are still the same. We still have not perfected the art of living.
At the same time, though, as the essential truths in Montaigne are constant and eternal, in other ways Montaigne has not aged well. He was very much a product of his times, and his writings are extremely misogynistic (“The most useful and honorable science and occupation for a woman is the science of housekeeping”; “It irritates me to see in many households Monsieur coming home around noon, fretful and dirty from the mill of business, when Madame is still busy doing her hair and fixing up in her boudoir . . . . It is ridiculous and unfair that the idleness of wives should be supported by our sweat and toil”; “I have seen some people get angry to be told that their color was good and their pulse even; I have seen them restrain their laughter because it betrayed their recovery, and hate health because it was not pitiable. What is more, they were not women”). But this is forgivable now because of the time in which he was writing, though it would not be excusable for a writer today. We find similar views expressed by the likes of writers like Emile Durkheim, Shakespeare, Immanuel Kant and Sigmund Freud, among others.
And like his views on the roles of the sexes, his political views are also a bit suspect today, an ardent conservative, who believed that even the worst political regime was preferable to social change for the possibility that a new government could be worse than the existing one. Indeed, many times what has been done in the name of ‘progress’ has not necessarily made the world better, and the same goes for technology as for governmental affairs. Yet, it seems a bit narrow-minded to reject all change with so broad a sweep as does Montaigne. As much as Montaigne professes open-mindedness, tolerance and exploration for the individual, in matters of governance he is rather conservative and unyielding. This is one of his many contradictions and the one that I had the most difficulty with, but I have come to forgive similar shortcomings in writers such as Hegel and Machiavelli (which I have commented on in my reviews of their works).
But Montaigne is more than just his shortcomings, and his strengths outweigh his weaknesses. Not only did he advance the essay as a literary form, not only are his main points still relevant today (if some of his ideas are a bit dated and even offensive), not only was he extremely influential (in his own country, allegedly, last of all – appreciated first in England and later in literary circles in America; the opposite could be said of Whitman), but his writings are in many ways a guide for living. He doesn’t moralize, but he shows us ways that we can perhaps improve ourselves. And his writings are far more sophisticated and worthwhile than the loads of self-help books that flood the shelves of modern bookselling chains today. If one can look past his faults, there is much to appreciate in this great 16th century innovator.
“It seemed to me as if I had written the book in some former life, so sincerely it spoke to my thought and experience,” wrote Emerson of his first encounter with Montaigne’s essays. And, indeed, I feel that I could copy and paste my review of the works of Emerson here and amend it as needed, perhaps splicing in a few sections of my thoughts on Whitman as well (for he too embraced a similar sort of “tolerant individualism,” as the translator of this work – Donald Frame – calls it). And, as Thoreau said of Whitman, there is something also “wonderfully Oriental” in his philosophies. As with Emerson these essays sometimes are prone to meandering, and rather than taking us directly to some wisdom Montaigne gives us a scenic tour of his mind, and it is at these moments that he seems most relaxed and perhaps most enjoyable. As with both Emerson and Whitman there is a tolerance to these essays, an egoism (and also an interest in the general well-being and progress of humanity), an embrace of relativism and of healthy skepticism (“Only the fools are certain and assured”) and, we also find a man with many layers and contradictions, for he, like these two later writers, was of the belief that “Each man bears the entire form of human nature.”
Montaigne is often credited with pioneering the essay as a literary form and his essays are at times extremely personal, for he opens these essays with a note to the reader which begins: “This is an honest book, reader. . . I am myself the matter of my book.” And for this alone, perhaps, he deserves to be read. He deserves to be read though too because of the breadth of what he has to say. As laid out in the introduction to this book, “‘If people realized,’ writes Christopher Morley, ‘that almost everything conceivably sayable has been said in Montaigne, why should they ever buy a new book?’ Every age has found something—and something new—in the Essays.” Indeed, one could probably read these essays again and again and find something new and more worthwhile on each reading. They are fresh and easy to read even more than 400 years later (and very funny too), for Montaigne taps into eternal truths in his writing (and in this there is longevity). For as much as we may feel that we have changed, with our computers and smartphones, with modern medicine and airplanes, the human condition is still very much the same as it was not only 400 years ago but going back to the ancient Greeks (who Montaigne is so fond of quoting) and even earlier. We may have eradicated certain diseases and made the world smaller through globalization (for better or worse), but the problems of the human soul are still the same. We still have not perfected the art of living.
At the same time, though, as the essential truths in Montaigne are constant and eternal, in other ways Montaigne has not aged well. He was very much a product of his times, and his writings are extremely misogynistic (“The most useful and honorable science and occupation for a woman is the science of housekeeping”; “It irritates me to see in many households Monsieur coming home around noon, fretful and dirty from the mill of business, when Madame is still busy doing her hair and fixing up in her boudoir . . . . It is ridiculous and unfair that the idleness of wives should be supported by our sweat and toil”; “I have seen some people get angry to be told that their color was good and their pulse even; I have seen them restrain their laughter because it betrayed their recovery, and hate health because it was not pitiable. What is more, they were not women”). But this is forgivable now because of the time in which he was writing, though it would not be excusable for a writer today. We find similar views expressed by the likes of writers like Emile Durkheim, Shakespeare, Immanuel Kant and Sigmund Freud, among others.
And like his views on the roles of the sexes, his political views are also a bit suspect today, an ardent conservative, who believed that even the worst political regime was preferable to social change for the possibility that a new government could be worse than the existing one. Indeed, many times what has been done in the name of ‘progress’ has not necessarily made the world better, and the same goes for technology as for governmental affairs. Yet, it seems a bit narrow-minded to reject all change with so broad a sweep as does Montaigne. As much as Montaigne professes open-mindedness, tolerance and exploration for the individual, in matters of governance he is rather conservative and unyielding. This is one of his many contradictions and the one that I had the most difficulty with, but I have come to forgive similar shortcomings in writers such as Hegel and Machiavelli (which I have commented on in my reviews of their works).
But Montaigne is more than just his shortcomings, and his strengths outweigh his weaknesses. Not only did he advance the essay as a literary form, not only are his main points still relevant today (if some of his ideas are a bit dated and even offensive), not only was he extremely influential (in his own country, allegedly, last of all – appreciated first in England and later in literary circles in America; the opposite could be said of Whitman), but his writings are in many ways a guide for living. He doesn’t moralize, but he shows us ways that we can perhaps improve ourselves. And his writings are far more sophisticated and worthwhile than the loads of self-help books that flood the shelves of modern bookselling chains today. If one can look past his faults, there is much to appreciate in this great 16th century innovator.
April 20, 2009
There are so many kernels of truth in Montaigne's writing that I won't even bother making a list of quotes - but I will say that it's hard to tell that his essays were written in the 16th century. They're an exploration of his true character and I think it's safe to say that not much has changed about the human experience or psyche in 500 years. Montaigne seems so modern (and often so humorous and frank) because he holds nothing back from himself or his readers and that's refreshing to read - to this day.
"Hardly anything stirs in me that is secret or hidden from my reason; hardly anything takes place that has not the consent of every part of me, without divisions and without inner rebellion. My judgment takes the complete credit or the complete blame for my actions; and once it takes the blame it keeps it forever."
That quote from Montaigne sums up what each essay is like. He puts himself and all he stands for on trial and bares it for all to see - the best and the worst of who he is.
Montaigne's Essays are the most honest and articulate exploration of character and personality I've ever come across (which is why we're still talking about them over 500 years later) and as I read of his epiphanies and moments of self-discovery I often find myself nodding in agreement.
When writing is truly universal, which all great literature is, any reader can see his or her self reflected in its words. The passing of 500 years, the separating distance of an ocean and several nations, a difference in sexual orientation, race, gender, ethnicity and language proves no hindrance to the power or poignancy of true honesty.
"Hardly anything stirs in me that is secret or hidden from my reason; hardly anything takes place that has not the consent of every part of me, without divisions and without inner rebellion. My judgment takes the complete credit or the complete blame for my actions; and once it takes the blame it keeps it forever."
That quote from Montaigne sums up what each essay is like. He puts himself and all he stands for on trial and bares it for all to see - the best and the worst of who he is.
Montaigne's Essays are the most honest and articulate exploration of character and personality I've ever come across (which is why we're still talking about them over 500 years later) and as I read of his epiphanies and moments of self-discovery I often find myself nodding in agreement.
When writing is truly universal, which all great literature is, any reader can see his or her self reflected in its words. The passing of 500 years, the separating distance of an ocean and several nations, a difference in sexual orientation, race, gender, ethnicity and language proves no hindrance to the power or poignancy of true honesty.
November 20, 2013
Uzun zamandır okudugum kitaplar boyle keyif vermiyordu diyerek baslayayim. Her sayfasinda hayata dair bir seyler buldugum yazildigi donemden bu gune insanı ve ona dair her seyi kapsayan mantikli onermeler sunan Montaigne kitabi.
Ozellikle "yamyamlar uzerine" bolumunu okurken cok dusundugumu soyleyebilirim. Algilari ve gorunenin otesini yalin bir dille size aktarisiyla dusunce yapinizi temelden degistirebilecek bir eser.
Her insanin hayatinin belli donemlerinde yeniden okumasi gerekir dedirtecek turde bir basyapit ki her okudugunuzda daha once dikkatinizi cekmeyen bir sey sizi mutlaka cezbedecektir diyebilecegim doluluga sahip!..
Kesinlikle okunmali.
Ozellikle "yamyamlar uzerine" bolumunu okurken cok dusundugumu soyleyebilirim. Algilari ve gorunenin otesini yalin bir dille size aktarisiyla dusunce yapinizi temelden degistirebilecek bir eser.
Her insanin hayatinin belli donemlerinde yeniden okumasi gerekir dedirtecek turde bir basyapit ki her okudugunuzda daha once dikkatinizi cekmeyen bir sey sizi mutlaka cezbedecektir diyebilecegim doluluga sahip!..
Kesinlikle okunmali.
August 8, 2008
I’ve read a handful from the Donald Frame translation but prefer Screech. If anyone can be placed on a plane with Shakespeare for me, it is Montaigne. This selection includes some of the big ones, such as “On some lines of Virgil,” “On experience,” “On education,” “On fear,” and so on to the tune of 400 superlative pages. The Complete Essays is the true gem, but I bought that for the apartment; this one is for the train.
December 20, 2019
In this collection of essays, Montaigne established the essay form in the modern way that we still recognize today. From this collection I would like to focus on one of the most famous essays; namely, "To philosophize is to learn how to die". Montaigne begins by referencing Cicero (who himself was paraphrasing Socrates as he was presented by Plato in his dialogue, Phaedo). He quickly concludes that the purpose of philosophy "is to teach not to be afraid of dying." (p 17) This, however, he immediately modifies this to say that "the labor of reason must be to make us live well, and at our ease," with a target of happiness (quoting scripture rather than Aristotle).
The essay could have ended here, but Montaigne goes on at length about the nature of virtue and how it abhors death. He also references common opinions about death but comes around to his own recommendations that death is part of the human condition. The answer, it seems, is to always have our death in mind so that we become used to it, and as such prepared for it. He provides quotes from his predecessors including the following, from Plutarch, that sounds just a bit fatalistic:
"Believe that each day is the last to shine on you. If it comes, time not hoped for will be welcome indeed."(p 24)
He even invokes religion and its contempt for life: "why should we fear to lose something which, once lost, cannot be regretted? Death is inevitable, does it matter when it comes?" (p 30) This would seem to be an end to the discussion.
However, he turns to the works of Lucretius in the closing pages of the essay and lets Nature speak about how one should view death: "Leave this world,' she says, 'just as you entered it. The same journey from death to life, which you once mad without suffering or fear, make it again from life to death. Your death is a part of the order of the universe; it is a part of the life of the world'"(p 31)
Thus he suggests living is like a project and one should not regret the unfinished project in anticipation of death. This view is not dissimilar from that later thinker and essayist, David Hume, that puts forth a sense of benevolence for life and death as a natural part of human existence.
Montaigne concludes his essay with an exhortation to seek happiness in the most natural way possible. This will dispel any interest in immortality; even as Nature claims that a life that lasted forever would be unbearable. We should be aware rather of the advantages of death and recognize that what bits of anguish this life may contain only serve to make death more palatable and our acceptance of it more reasonable. Lucretius painted a poetic vision of how natural death is for humans in his great poem, On the Nature of Things. In this essay Montaigne reasons with himself and with us as fellow humans toward that same end in his own philosophical way as an essayist.
The essay could have ended here, but Montaigne goes on at length about the nature of virtue and how it abhors death. He also references common opinions about death but comes around to his own recommendations that death is part of the human condition. The answer, it seems, is to always have our death in mind so that we become used to it, and as such prepared for it. He provides quotes from his predecessors including the following, from Plutarch, that sounds just a bit fatalistic:
"Believe that each day is the last to shine on you. If it comes, time not hoped for will be welcome indeed."(p 24)
He even invokes religion and its contempt for life: "why should we fear to lose something which, once lost, cannot be regretted? Death is inevitable, does it matter when it comes?" (p 30) This would seem to be an end to the discussion.
However, he turns to the works of Lucretius in the closing pages of the essay and lets Nature speak about how one should view death: "Leave this world,' she says, 'just as you entered it. The same journey from death to life, which you once mad without suffering or fear, make it again from life to death. Your death is a part of the order of the universe; it is a part of the life of the world'"(p 31)
Thus he suggests living is like a project and one should not regret the unfinished project in anticipation of death. This view is not dissimilar from that later thinker and essayist, David Hume, that puts forth a sense of benevolence for life and death as a natural part of human existence.
Montaigne concludes his essay with an exhortation to seek happiness in the most natural way possible. This will dispel any interest in immortality; even as Nature claims that a life that lasted forever would be unbearable. We should be aware rather of the advantages of death and recognize that what bits of anguish this life may contain only serve to make death more palatable and our acceptance of it more reasonable. Lucretius painted a poetic vision of how natural death is for humans in his great poem, On the Nature of Things. In this essay Montaigne reasons with himself and with us as fellow humans toward that same end in his own philosophical way as an essayist.
August 4, 2013
Primeira, superficial e talvez até mesquinha avaliação da obra: Estamos perante auto-ajuda do século XVI. Calma conhecedores literários do senhor Montaigne, estou consciente da blasfémia que aqui disse! Até porque estamos perante um conjunto de ensaios bem melhor embrulhados que qualquer livro peseudo místico/iluminador exposto numa qualquer prateleira de supermercado. Aqui há ética e verdadeiro conhecimento. No fundo Montaigne não é um doutrinador, nem criou uma corrente filosófica qualquer, digamos que dá conselhos…sábios é certo, fundamentados e intervalados com umas belas passagens clássicas.
Mas Montaigne é também um fruto do tempo, encaixado entre o renascimento e o iluminismo reflecte, ele próprio, este entalamento da História.
De um lado temos um Montaigne com uma visão dessacralizada da morte, tirando-a do centro do pensamento, das angústias e dos anseios. Ou ainda um Montaigne com uma visão já meia-iluminista da educação…com umas teorias do aprender pelo lúdico ou ainda o ter o extremo cuidado de não repreender a criança, não vá ela traumatizar-se (sim eu pelos vistos sou um conservador medieval nestas matérias, uma vez que não engulo nenhuma destas larachas).
Por outro lado temos ainda um ensaísta profundamente machista, numa sociedade em que amizades são apenas e só entre senhores e as mulheres (esse ser frágil e servil ser) ficam em casa a zelar pelas gerações que hão-de vir.
Mas no fundo, hoje como então os problemas e temas de ensaio são os mesmos: a desigualdade, a tristeza, a amizade, a solidão ou o como alcançar uma consciência moderada e ajuizada. Até naquela época muitos já procuravam em longas viagens a sítios longínquos a forma de encontrar o verdadeiro “ser”, algo que Montaigne desdenhava pois, e citando Sócrates (o clássico), tal nunca funcionaria pois: “ ..os seus vícios acompanharam-no” [especial nota neste trecho para um potencial leitor deste texto que possa estar em casa de pijama a sentir as contingências da primavera: pelos vistos, segundo alguns pensadores, fugas para Índia não resultam!] :P
Passaram quase 500 anos, as inquietações mantêm-se, as questões perduram, no fundo não são os dilemas éticos daqueles ou destes homens...mas de todos os Homens, num ensaio que nem Montaigne nem nenhum outro poderá algum dia terminar.
Mas Montaigne é também um fruto do tempo, encaixado entre o renascimento e o iluminismo reflecte, ele próprio, este entalamento da História.
De um lado temos um Montaigne com uma visão dessacralizada da morte, tirando-a do centro do pensamento, das angústias e dos anseios. Ou ainda um Montaigne com uma visão já meia-iluminista da educação…com umas teorias do aprender pelo lúdico ou ainda o ter o extremo cuidado de não repreender a criança, não vá ela traumatizar-se (sim eu pelos vistos sou um conservador medieval nestas matérias, uma vez que não engulo nenhuma destas larachas).
Por outro lado temos ainda um ensaísta profundamente machista, numa sociedade em que amizades são apenas e só entre senhores e as mulheres (esse ser frágil e servil ser) ficam em casa a zelar pelas gerações que hão-de vir.
Mas no fundo, hoje como então os problemas e temas de ensaio são os mesmos: a desigualdade, a tristeza, a amizade, a solidão ou o como alcançar uma consciência moderada e ajuizada. Até naquela época muitos já procuravam em longas viagens a sítios longínquos a forma de encontrar o verdadeiro “ser”, algo que Montaigne desdenhava pois, e citando Sócrates (o clássico), tal nunca funcionaria pois: “ ..os seus vícios acompanharam-no” [especial nota neste trecho para um potencial leitor deste texto que possa estar em casa de pijama a sentir as contingências da primavera: pelos vistos, segundo alguns pensadores, fugas para Índia não resultam!] :P
Passaram quase 500 anos, as inquietações mantêm-se, as questões perduram, no fundo não são os dilemas éticos daqueles ou destes homens...mas de todos os Homens, num ensaio que nem Montaigne nem nenhum outro poderá algum dia terminar.
March 25, 2015
A collection of humanist essays
19 September 2010
It took me a while to actually get into this book, but now I have completed it I must say that I am quite glad that I read it. The version that I read was only a collection of his essays, so today I made my way to the second hand bookshop and pick up a copy of his complete essays (which I plan on reading a bit at a time).
Montaigne was a French noble living about the time of Shakespeare (actually a little before) and these essays are more a collection of thoughts that he writes throughout his life. We learn a lot about Montaigne, his joys and his habits, from these essays. He writes about many topics, and interweaves examples from his life and from the classical authors into them. Montaigne was a humanist, and his writings show it, and we can see the development of humanism in his essays as he explores topics of life. To put his work down to a simple theme, it is about living the good life. Okay, Montaigne was wealthy, so he had a lot a privileges that others did not have, but the essays weren't even written for general consumption but more for his inner circle of friends.
One thing that stuck out is his way of reading books. He describes it as simply delving into parts but never actually reading it from cover to cover unless he is heavily persuaded to do so (and when he does he is pleasantly surprised). I can't say that that is something that I would do though. I like to read my books cover to cover, and generally do not put a book down until I have completed it, though in recent times I have had multiple books on the go, though I generally select one book and read it straight through (commentary and all). I also do not like to read a book unless I can learn something from it, which is why most novels that are published these days do not even appear on my radar.
I since read the entire collection of essays (and it took quite a long time as well), however since my review takes up more room that Goodreads allows, I have instead posted it on my blog.
19 September 2010
It took me a while to actually get into this book, but now I have completed it I must say that I am quite glad that I read it. The version that I read was only a collection of his essays, so today I made my way to the second hand bookshop and pick up a copy of his complete essays (which I plan on reading a bit at a time).
Montaigne was a French noble living about the time of Shakespeare (actually a little before) and these essays are more a collection of thoughts that he writes throughout his life. We learn a lot about Montaigne, his joys and his habits, from these essays. He writes about many topics, and interweaves examples from his life and from the classical authors into them. Montaigne was a humanist, and his writings show it, and we can see the development of humanism in his essays as he explores topics of life. To put his work down to a simple theme, it is about living the good life. Okay, Montaigne was wealthy, so he had a lot a privileges that others did not have, but the essays weren't even written for general consumption but more for his inner circle of friends.
One thing that stuck out is his way of reading books. He describes it as simply delving into parts but never actually reading it from cover to cover unless he is heavily persuaded to do so (and when he does he is pleasantly surprised). I can't say that that is something that I would do though. I like to read my books cover to cover, and generally do not put a book down until I have completed it, though in recent times I have had multiple books on the go, though I generally select one book and read it straight through (commentary and all). I also do not like to read a book unless I can learn something from it, which is why most novels that are published these days do not even appear on my radar.
I since read the entire collection of essays (and it took quite a long time as well), however since my review takes up more room that Goodreads allows, I have instead posted it on my blog.
February 7, 2009
I first read The Essays in high school and was astounded that, amidst all the really terrible literature that I had to read, these essays came through like a breath of fresh air. Admittedly, this wasn't required reading, but it was a fortuitous meeting for my relatively unstructured yet passionate psyche.
What I admired more about Montaigne more than anything was his restraint and dedication to creating a format: each of the essays was constructed with such beauty and grace that each lacked a sense of urgency, but maintained a kind of necessity. I was left with the feeling that not only was I agreeing with the man, and I certainly didn't want to do that as a rebellious teen, but I found myself liking the man. I would have liked to have spoken with him at length, maybe invited him over for tea. My parents would have been pleased.
Montaigne writes with such clarity of purpose that one cannot help by being impressed with his focus. Whether one agrees with everything, one has to admire the majestic power, even as it is disguised as a simple man's thoughts.
What I admired more about Montaigne more than anything was his restraint and dedication to creating a format: each of the essays was constructed with such beauty and grace that each lacked a sense of urgency, but maintained a kind of necessity. I was left with the feeling that not only was I agreeing with the man, and I certainly didn't want to do that as a rebellious teen, but I found myself liking the man. I would have liked to have spoken with him at length, maybe invited him over for tea. My parents would have been pleased.
Montaigne writes with such clarity of purpose that one cannot help by being impressed with his focus. Whether one agrees with everything, one has to admire the majestic power, even as it is disguised as a simple man's thoughts.
August 25, 2014
Simply wonderful! Montaigne: a man for all ages.
I also really like this translation by M.A. Screech - where other modern(ish)translations I have read reshape the sentence structures to achieve a more familiar modern tone - Screech remains faithful to the Latinate structures that Montaigne employs (for Montaigne's first eight year, he was exposed only to Latin, and, though he wrote in French, Latin remained as his linguistic DNA).
The essays never cease to amaze and delight; they are a wonderful combination of erudition, intelligence, humility and humanity.
I also really like this translation by M.A. Screech - where other modern(ish)translations I have read reshape the sentence structures to achieve a more familiar modern tone - Screech remains faithful to the Latinate structures that Montaigne employs (for Montaigne's first eight year, he was exposed only to Latin, and, though he wrote in French, Latin remained as his linguistic DNA).
The essays never cease to amaze and delight; they are a wonderful combination of erudition, intelligence, humility and humanity.
February 28, 2008
Wonderful confluence of philosophy written in the 16th century and illustrations by Salvidor Dali, one of the great artists of the 20th century. Thou hast here an honest book. Montaigne insights directly influenced the roots of a European renaissance and you can hear his voice echo on in philosophers and great minds who are icons today, Nietzsche, Voltaire and Shakespeare to name but a few.
June 3, 2019
Surely one of the greatest books of Western civilization. The length was daunting at first, but soon I could not wait to get back to it every evening. Equal parts philosophy and psychology, it marks a clear departure from medieval thinking in its moderation, love for the physical world (including the body), personal nature, and free speculation. Plus it includes, in the deceptively titled “On Some Lines of Virgil,” a lengthy consideration of penis size.
November 11, 2022
!! такойййй хороший
очень хочется прочесть все-все но времени конечно нет поэтому только пролистала но ! 'о дружбе' самое трепетное до слез а 'о стихах вергилия' самое неожиданное и еще много о любимых книжках и тяготах чтения самое знакомое )
в общем замечательный умница хотя и не самый образцовый католик
очень хочется прочесть все-все но времени конечно нет поэтому только пролистала но ! 'о дружбе' самое трепетное до слез а 'о стихах вергилия' самое неожиданное и еще много о любимых книжках и тяготах чтения самое знакомое )
в общем замечательный умница хотя и не самый образцовый католик
August 24, 2024
Main takeaways:
(1) Even if you are the very most open minded person in your society you are still substantially bound by the thought patterns of that society
(2) What humans think about the world has changed a lot, but how we think is essentially identical
(3) Doctors in the way back when really, really, really sucked
(1) Even if you are the very most open minded person in your society you are still substantially bound by the thought patterns of that society
(2) What humans think about the world has changed a lot, but how we think is essentially identical
(3) Doctors in the way back when really, really, really sucked
November 18, 2014
“Cobardía: madre de la crueldad.”
―Michel de Montaigne
―Michel de Montaigne
March 15, 2017
Este autor que es de los pocos que leí del Renacimiento tiene un apartado donde habla del miedo, presentando ejemplos y consecuencias del mismo.
April 9, 2018
Zamansız
Akıl dolu
Lirik
Beyin zorlayıcı
Ruhsal
Bir eser boşuna ölümsüz olmuyor, fırsat bulduğumda 4 ciltlik külliyatını da okumak isiyorum.
Akıl dolu
Lirik
Beyin zorlayıcı
Ruhsal
Bir eser boşuna ölümsüz olmuyor, fırsat bulduğumda 4 ciltlik külliyatını da okumak isiyorum.
March 18, 2024
Past in hetzelfde straatje als Tegen de Keer en hoofdkussenboek, maar vond dit boek 10x minder leuk
January 12, 2014
The French nobleman Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was one of the originators of the modern discursive essay, a walk through and around a subject as if it were a garden or an interesting property or house. He is a hinge figure, in some senses, between the classical era (still a great influence on the educated classes of Europe) and the subsequent ventures into the Age of Reason and Romanticism.
Montaigne isn't a writer to be read front to back. He's to be read a little bit at a time. His chief subject is how he fits into the world, what kind of man he is, his defects, his influences, his virtues--if there be any--and his persuit of a kind of wholeness or completeness that could be said to be best found in his great hero, Socrates.
Like Socrates, Montaigne was imperturbable when encountering his own ignorance. In the "Selected Essays" I recently read, I found him deeply passionate about one thing only: friendship. Here he reflects his feelings for Estienne de la Boetie in terms that amount to a merger of wills, identities, sensibilities, world views, moods and humors. He is clear about this kind of friendship. You look at one another and know what you're both thinking or will both say. Almost all of us have had, however briefly, such an attachment. It's not romantic or sexual; again, it's a congruence of selves, a happy happenstance, something one can trust (and something that, when it dissapears, is a bitter loss.)
Montaigne goes so far as to say--and I agree with him--that the best thing you can do as a friend is ask your friend to do something for you. He explains the paradox as follows: Allowing your friend to help you is a gift, as giving is a gift. There's meaning in a gesture that benefits another one cannot obtain from doing something for oneself.
Somewhat unfortunately Montaigne is the author who focused on Aristotle's peculiar statement--"O friends, there is no friend!"--because this enignma gave birth to one of the most tedious books I've ever wrestled with, Jacques Derrida's The Politics of Friendship. What, Derrida asks for hundreds of pages, could Aristotle have meant? If you are addressing friends, then you cannot say there are no friends, can you?
I still don't have the answer to this conundrum, but I eventually concluded that from the title forward Derrida had everything wrong: there are, in fact, no politics in friendship, there are no trade-offs, deals, alliances, competitions. The fact that Aristotle seems to have said otherwise would point, I should think, to the fundamental Aristotelian premise that man is a political animal. A deeper soul-to-soul interpenetration wasn't his chief subject.
Above I used the word "discursive" advisedly. Montaigne maintains in "On Books" that he is an intermittent, scatter-shot reader, but this isn't quite true, given his mastery of the classics and the apposite stories and quotes he draws on, mostly from the Latin authors because his Greek wasn't strong. What he seems to mean in observing himself closely is that the mind wanders and "bloweth where it listeth." He's suggesting that there are impentrable mysteries in everyone, perhaps divine, perhaps originating in study or that modern rarity, solitude.
"On Solitude" is one of Montaigne's more famous essays; it's a theme he returns to elsewhere as well. How can one be alone and what comes of being alone? How do you manage being alone? What do you think when your purpose is neither to speak nor write but simply understand the peculiarities of your being? In "Of Three Commerces" Montaigne writes about his famous tower, where he often hid himself with his books or simply secluded himself to reflect toward no specific end. I have long thought that in the pre-Internet age, or let's go further: in the pre-Information Age, men and women expressed themselves with more clarity, more definition. Why? Because they were less distracted by trivia--and perhaps also because the better-educated classes were….well, better educated.
Montaigne makes a point of saying that it's possible to maintain one's solitary integrity in a royal court, more difficult to do so in the presence of a beautiful woman, and almost impossible to do so when wrestling with what he and we both would call business--the getting and spending of things.
As an essayist and a person, what interested him was the core, sentient self, nourshing and expressing it. He valued life, as he makes clear in "On Cruelty." He saw enormities in a man as complexly simple as Socrates. By the same token (and I am not the only one to sense this) he served as a kind of moderate precursor to what Shakespeare had in mind when he created Hamlet. I say "moderate" because Montaigne was temperate,never rash, and little provoked. But when you read him and encounter him thinking…and thinking…and thinking…it's almost inevitable that you wonder if an unprovoked Hamlet wouldn't have been somewhat like him. (Though of course Hamlet was provoked, and therein lay the tragedy.)
The balance we had in Western Civilization in Montaigne's time was provided by classical precedents that had not yet succumbed to the self-absorption of Romanticism, yielding wild claims to the meaning of indvidual sovereignty (U.S. insistence on democracy for everyone) and a counter-reaction emphasizing unity of all beneath one God/Allah/state (Islamacism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism).
Montaigne always found ways to lean forward and yet hold himself back at the same time. He was acute,but he was cautious. He had a sense of the golden mean, the desirable middle between two extremes. Not being systematic, he could continue to explore, and that's precisely what he thought he should do, as laid out in "That It Is Folly to Measure Truth and Error by Our Own Capacity."
For more of my comments on literature, see Tuppence Reviews (Kindle).
Montaigne isn't a writer to be read front to back. He's to be read a little bit at a time. His chief subject is how he fits into the world, what kind of man he is, his defects, his influences, his virtues--if there be any--and his persuit of a kind of wholeness or completeness that could be said to be best found in his great hero, Socrates.
Like Socrates, Montaigne was imperturbable when encountering his own ignorance. In the "Selected Essays" I recently read, I found him deeply passionate about one thing only: friendship. Here he reflects his feelings for Estienne de la Boetie in terms that amount to a merger of wills, identities, sensibilities, world views, moods and humors. He is clear about this kind of friendship. You look at one another and know what you're both thinking or will both say. Almost all of us have had, however briefly, such an attachment. It's not romantic or sexual; again, it's a congruence of selves, a happy happenstance, something one can trust (and something that, when it dissapears, is a bitter loss.)
Montaigne goes so far as to say--and I agree with him--that the best thing you can do as a friend is ask your friend to do something for you. He explains the paradox as follows: Allowing your friend to help you is a gift, as giving is a gift. There's meaning in a gesture that benefits another one cannot obtain from doing something for oneself.
Somewhat unfortunately Montaigne is the author who focused on Aristotle's peculiar statement--"O friends, there is no friend!"--because this enignma gave birth to one of the most tedious books I've ever wrestled with, Jacques Derrida's The Politics of Friendship. What, Derrida asks for hundreds of pages, could Aristotle have meant? If you are addressing friends, then you cannot say there are no friends, can you?
I still don't have the answer to this conundrum, but I eventually concluded that from the title forward Derrida had everything wrong: there are, in fact, no politics in friendship, there are no trade-offs, deals, alliances, competitions. The fact that Aristotle seems to have said otherwise would point, I should think, to the fundamental Aristotelian premise that man is a political animal. A deeper soul-to-soul interpenetration wasn't his chief subject.
Above I used the word "discursive" advisedly. Montaigne maintains in "On Books" that he is an intermittent, scatter-shot reader, but this isn't quite true, given his mastery of the classics and the apposite stories and quotes he draws on, mostly from the Latin authors because his Greek wasn't strong. What he seems to mean in observing himself closely is that the mind wanders and "bloweth where it listeth." He's suggesting that there are impentrable mysteries in everyone, perhaps divine, perhaps originating in study or that modern rarity, solitude.
"On Solitude" is one of Montaigne's more famous essays; it's a theme he returns to elsewhere as well. How can one be alone and what comes of being alone? How do you manage being alone? What do you think when your purpose is neither to speak nor write but simply understand the peculiarities of your being? In "Of Three Commerces" Montaigne writes about his famous tower, where he often hid himself with his books or simply secluded himself to reflect toward no specific end. I have long thought that in the pre-Internet age, or let's go further: in the pre-Information Age, men and women expressed themselves with more clarity, more definition. Why? Because they were less distracted by trivia--and perhaps also because the better-educated classes were….well, better educated.
Montaigne makes a point of saying that it's possible to maintain one's solitary integrity in a royal court, more difficult to do so in the presence of a beautiful woman, and almost impossible to do so when wrestling with what he and we both would call business--the getting and spending of things.
As an essayist and a person, what interested him was the core, sentient self, nourshing and expressing it. He valued life, as he makes clear in "On Cruelty." He saw enormities in a man as complexly simple as Socrates. By the same token (and I am not the only one to sense this) he served as a kind of moderate precursor to what Shakespeare had in mind when he created Hamlet. I say "moderate" because Montaigne was temperate,never rash, and little provoked. But when you read him and encounter him thinking…and thinking…and thinking…it's almost inevitable that you wonder if an unprovoked Hamlet wouldn't have been somewhat like him. (Though of course Hamlet was provoked, and therein lay the tragedy.)
The balance we had in Western Civilization in Montaigne's time was provided by classical precedents that had not yet succumbed to the self-absorption of Romanticism, yielding wild claims to the meaning of indvidual sovereignty (U.S. insistence on democracy for everyone) and a counter-reaction emphasizing unity of all beneath one God/Allah/state (Islamacism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism).
Montaigne always found ways to lean forward and yet hold himself back at the same time. He was acute,but he was cautious. He had a sense of the golden mean, the desirable middle between two extremes. Not being systematic, he could continue to explore, and that's precisely what he thought he should do, as laid out in "That It Is Folly to Measure Truth and Error by Our Own Capacity."
For more of my comments on literature, see Tuppence Reviews (Kindle).
February 22, 2025
I enjoyed revisiting this. Such an inward look was revolutionary for the time, as was the range of subjects, both for their scope & intimacy. It's disappointing when otherwise brilliant men exhibit the misogyny of their day. So, points off for underestimating and under-valuing women. I enjoyed these selections, but I had to roll my eyes a number of times.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 26, 2022
İlk defa ortaokulda okumuştum. Tekrar okuyacağım kitaplarda seçici davranıyorum, zira ömür kısa, vakit az. İlk okuduğumda tabii olarak çok etkilenmiştim. Bunca yıl sonra da fikrim değişmedi; tercümanın hakkını da vererek iyi ki okudum diyorum.
Read
September 3, 2009"In truth, either reason is joking or her target must be our happiness" 17
"Life has no evil for him who has thoroughly understood that loss of life is not an evil." 24
"Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them." 32
The usefulness of living lies not in duration but in what you make of it. Some have lived long and lived little." 34
p. 54 "Some philosophers..."
"Learning must not only lodge with us: we must marry her." 73
"There is nothing in the whole world madder than bringing matters down to the measure of our own capacities and potentialities." 75
"We must either totally submit to the authority of our ecclesiastical polity or else totally release ourselves from it. It is not for us to decide what degree of obedience we owe to it." 78
"It is in our soul that evil grips us: and she cannot escape from herself." 99
"You ask me: 'What is the origin of our custom of saying Bless you when people sneeze?' Well, we break three sorts of wind: the one which issues lower down is very dirty; the one which issues from the mouth comports an element of reproach for gluttony; and the third is sneezing, to which, since it issues from the head and is blameless, we give that honorable greeting. Do not mock such subtle reasoning: it is (so they say) from Aristotle" 330-331
"There are more books on books than on any other subject." 369
"As long as I can find earth or sky open to me elsewhere I will never remain anywhere cowering in hiding." 373
"I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics." 374
"Life has no evil for him who has thoroughly understood that loss of life is not an evil." 24
"Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them." 32
The usefulness of living lies not in duration but in what you make of it. Some have lived long and lived little." 34
p. 54 "Some philosophers..."
"Learning must not only lodge with us: we must marry her." 73
"There is nothing in the whole world madder than bringing matters down to the measure of our own capacities and potentialities." 75
"We must either totally submit to the authority of our ecclesiastical polity or else totally release ourselves from it. It is not for us to decide what degree of obedience we owe to it." 78
"It is in our soul that evil grips us: and she cannot escape from herself." 99
"You ask me: 'What is the origin of our custom of saying Bless you when people sneeze?' Well, we break three sorts of wind: the one which issues lower down is very dirty; the one which issues from the mouth comports an element of reproach for gluttony; and the third is sneezing, to which, since it issues from the head and is blameless, we give that honorable greeting. Do not mock such subtle reasoning: it is (so they say) from Aristotle" 330-331
"There are more books on books than on any other subject." 369
"As long as I can find earth or sky open to me elsewhere I will never remain anywhere cowering in hiding." 373
"I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics, that is my physics." 374
March 26, 2016
He really does read like the first blogger, as a biographer has described him. These essays create a strong impression despite often seeming like a record of random thoughts. Yet they are not fully satisfying. It isn't so much Montaigne's opinions. He seems simultaneously convivial and a cold fish, fully candid yet suggestive of coyness. He shows great empathy for the newly discovered and murderously maltreated natives of the Americas. But he writes of women as decidedly second-class beings. He also seemed to be distant from his wife and daughter; and his mother goes unremarked on while his father receives a number of admiring and grateful comments. (It's possible that his distance from his daughter also had something to do with seeing his five other children die very young.) The essays themselves are fountains of aphorisms and common sense. They make for stimulating although not provocative reading. I take historians at their word when they write that Montaigne created a new class of written works and exemplified the new, humanistic point of view that emerged during the Renaissance. It was worth reading them, once. But why was I glad to reach the end, and to have read a volume only of selected essays rather than the complete works? Something to do with that remoteness, I think, and with a nagging feeling that the open window on his life was not quite fully open, no matter what he intended or said.
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