Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl ekɛm də mɔ̃tɛɲ]) (February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592) was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism. 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, including René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig, Eric Hoffer, Isaac Asimov, and perhaps William Shakespeare (see section "Related Writers and Influence" below).

In his own time, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman than 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 non-fiction has found inspiration in Montaigne and writers of all kinds continue to read him for his masterful balance of intellectual knowledge and personal story-telling.

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592) was an influential French Renaissance writer, generally considered to be the inventor of the personal essay.

Essais

Written between 1571 and 1592, these were published in various editions between 1580 and 1595

• Que sais-je?
  • Translation: "What know I?" or "What do I know?"
  • The notion of skepticism is most clearly understood by asking this question.
  • Book II, ch. 12

• Je veux qu'on me voit en ma façon simple, naturelle, et ordinaire, sans étude et artifice; car c'est moi que je peins...Je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre.
  • Translation: I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray...I am myself the matter of my book.
  • Book I (1580), To the Reader

• Certes, c'est un subject merveilleusement vain, divers, et ondoyant, que l'homme. Il est malaisé d'y fonder jugement constant et uniforme.
  • Translation: Truly man is a marvellously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgement on him.
  • Book I, ch. 1

• As for extraordinary things, all the provision in the world would not suffice.
  • Book I, ch. 14

• In my opinion, every rich man is a miser.
  • Book I, ch. 14

• Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so.
  • Book I, ch. 14

• C'est de quoi j'ai le plus de peur que la peur.
  • Translation: The thing I fear most is fear.
  • Book I, ch, 18

• Je veux que la mort me trouve plantant mes choux.
  • Translation: I want death to find me planting my cabbages.
  • Book I, ch. 20

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Fri Sep 3 20:44:54 2010