Procure The Essays Of Michel De MontaigneComplete Version (Annotated, Quotes, Adaptations, Other Features)) Drafted By Michel De Montaigne Rendered As File

after starting this, I finally finished it, At one point I was asked if it was normal to have a crush on a man who diedyears ago, I do not pretend to know the answer to that but in many ways theyears I spent with him did feel like a strange marriage.
At times I couldnt get enough of him, reading his musings on everything from cannibals to how to raise children at every available opportunity and at others, needing a break, I left him unattended.


What draws me to him is his curiosity about the world and his ability to consider a multitude of views and opinions, Each page is littered with quotes from Latin or Greek writers which he uses, not to support his views but as a starting point to explore what he thinks of things.
He does not judge and looks at everything as a unique consideration, so unlike today where opinions can only be polarised and there is scant interest in hearing an opposing view let alone giving it any ground.
He judges no one, his famous assertion that that, nothing human is alien to me seems to be one that he lived by as well as espoused.
Remarkably frank, he is very aware of his own failings both professionally, personally and physically and shares them with us in a spirit of openness rather than seeking sympathy.
Over theyears I read this book I watched Montaigne grow old, his health start to fail, he suffered from kidney stones which must have been agony at that time with no cure or pain relief, and his opinions change the final section has him revisiting some topics he had previously written on and taking a different stance.


This is a remarkable insight into a mans mind, his opinions and how he came to them, It is the whole world explored in a domestic home, It is strange to find yourself relating in so many ways to someone separated by centuries from you, but he is proof that human nature is unchanging.
So much is witty and wise and quotable that my phone is full of screenshots of snippets that made me laugh or struck me as very true.


If you undertake to take Montaigne into your life, congratulations you wont regret it, Your life will be enriched by getting to know the man, Just be aware that the headings of the essays are not always indicative of what will follow as his writings are like a pleasant walk where you meander off the path to follow interesting diversions.
It is also worth reading them in order as you can then see him mature and refer back to his earlier writings,

“To conclude: there is no permanent existence either in our being or in that of objects, We ourselves, our faculty of judgment and all mortal things are flowing and rolling ceaselessly nothing certain can be established about one from the other, since both judged and judging are ever shifting and changing.
” “ Okay I've read enough of this now, in a wide variety of settings, at miscellaneous times, within sundry atmospheres, such as late nights in bed under the lamp's pale glow, bright mornings early at certain tables or on metros, over coffees and over beers or over blended rye or suchlike things, in times of happiness and times of depression, in times of relative wealth and in times of poverty, in the stark wet heat of summer and the stark dry freeze of winter, under the rapture of autumn foliage about to be released from limbs and above the emerging green and yellow shoots and sprigs of spring, to qualify it as "read" so, over these long years sporadically spent with Montaigne, let's say I've come to think of this collection as damn near a complete picture of a human mind striving to come to terms

with the phenomenal world by engaging the sensorium as we're likely to get.
These pages contain a Universe, by which I mean a mind building things with language, and you, dear reader, are invited to navigate, Raise the masts! Aim the bowsprit directly into the heart of the day! Montaigne is one of my alltime favorite dudes truly a bridge between eras and endowed with enough sagacity and wisdom to guide a nation.
Wonderful and warm humanity and sparklingly sere humor, but he can chuck 'em, too: a handful of quiet paragraphs from his essays on Liars and Cowards scorches the flesh from deceitful bones and craven limbs.


Thanks to a screwup by the company I ordered Screech's translation from I received two copies one for my desk at the office, one for the table beside my bed at home.
At work or at rest, Montaigne leads you true,

BTW if the entire collection of essays seems too daunting a challenge, or too heavy to comfortably hold, there's an abridgement with an outstandingly smooth and literary translation by J.
M. Cohen perhaps more elegant than Screech's, more suave, but with all the edges sanded and hence less true to le Gros Guyennoise, Few things are more humbling that watching exceptional men humble themselves, In his collection of essays, nearlypages long, Montaigne reflects on all things from the greatness of Rome to smells, With unpretentious ease, he references the western classical historians and philosophers who provide the foundations for his discussions with himself, And, with similar unpretentious ease, he agrees or disagrees with them or, more commonly, uses them to show they contradict each other, Repeatedly, he concedes that all this learning does not provide any real knowledge, We are neither happier nor wiser because of study, Its all just a diversion, An exercise for a test that will never occur,

Writing with a sincerity I cannot even make analogy to, Montaignes Essays overflows with genuine sentiment, He refuses to hide behind obscurity and strikes a style that is so clear and accessible that you hear him rather than read him,

Montaigne is not the first to denigrate the ultimate value in study and clearly has not been the last, However, he is a welleducated man denouncing education, He writes without agenda. He is religious but does not advocate religion, He is a nationalist but does not advocate nationalism, His writings are about himself in the hope that incessant selfevaluation will reveal something about himself and others, Hes curious but, more importantly, honest about how little enlightenment a lifetime of study can really provide,

Normally, I plow through books this length just trying to get through them, I try to parse out whatever premise or process the writer is relying upon, But not with Montaigne. I found myself lingering over these essays, Listening to the conversation he was having with himself and hearing myself, Or at least what I want to sound like,

Montaigne is a great find and a welcome companion to anyone trying to obtain a classical liberal arts education, .