“ I shall see to it, if I can, that my death makes no statement that my life has not made already.
— Michel de Montaigne, That our actions should be judged by our intentions
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“ We cannot be held responsible beyond our strength and means, since the resulting events are quite outside our control and, in fact, we have power over nothing except our will; which is the basis upon which all rules concerning man’s duty must of necessity be founded.
— Michel de Montaigne, That our actions should be judged by our intentions
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Book #24
“I get others to say what I cannot put so well myself, sometimes because of the weakness of my language and sometimes because of the weakness of my intellect.” — Michel de Montaigne, On Books
I’ve never read de Montaigne before this. Wow, what a loss! The man is incredibly intelligent, astute and modern. If you hadn’t told me when he had lived, I would’ve guessed he had lived end of the 19th century. I can’t believe he actually lived at the end of the 16th century.
My copy is a selection of thirteen essays. My personal favourites were On Solitude, On Books, On Fear and On Sadness. I thoroughly enjoyed all the other ones as well, though On Virtue was kind of strange and I didn’t feel like it properly discussed virtue, exactly. But most of the essays were very illuminating and interesting, his style elegant but straightforward. I can’t wait to read more by him.
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