Montaigne's Essays.

Author: Montaigne
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-04-02
Features: A series of masterpieces reflecting the French spirit begins with Essays—[French] Nizier.
If you ask me what book to read, read Montaigne. He will calm you down. You will like him.
You will find I am not wrong.
—[French] Flaubert
In most of his works, I see the writer. In this book, I see an independent thinker.
—[French] Montesquieu
Ministers' speeches and political philosophers' essays are rarely popular, but Montaigne's books are read, translated, and discussed by civilized people in the name of the wise for over three hundred years.
—[American] F. L. Lloyd
The existence of such a person makes one feel even more joy in living.
—[German] Nietzsche
Montaigne is one of the most important representatives of French humanism in the late Renaissance. He served as a judge, legislator, and mayor of Bordeaux and was closely associated with King Henry III of France. Few have been as respected and embraced by modern readers as Montaigne. Essays was published in three volumes in France between 1580 and 1588. Since then, his works have never gone out of print. Today, they are available in all written languages worldwide. Together with Essays on Life by Bacon and Pascal's Pensées, they are hailed as the three great classics of European modern philosophical prose.
Montaigne is renowned for his erudition. He mastered the essay form and pioneered modern French prose. His language is straightforward and unadorned, his writing warm, lively, and full of wit. The entire work is filled with the author's calm observations on human emotions.