Que scay-je? (What do I know?)

 Having first encountered and become intrigued by Michel de Montaigne in Alain de Botton’s The Consolations of Philosophy, I was recommended Sarah Bakewell’s delightful and illuminating How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer. I subsequently resolved that there was nothing for it but to read his own words, in full, and procured a copy of Donald Frame’s translation The Complete Essays of Montaigne. I am savouring the content and, as yet, have completed only two of the three original books included in this largish volume (just over 900 dense pages), but am thoroughly enjoying each new encounter with his thoughts. Even his odd, and yet therefore perhaps entirely apposite (as seemingly every essay deviates from its stated theme), inclusion of the ‘Apology for Raymond Sebond’ (Book II, Essay 12) which, at 140 pages, far exceeds the length of all other entries, is dotted with his acquired wisdom and self-deprecating observations. For me, the strength of so much of Montaigne’s writing is the genuine sense of its being truly ‘lived’ wisdom, despite his great fondness for his library collection. Following is just a small taste of my favourite excerpts from Book I. They are numbered by Book and Essay e.g. I:4

I:4

‘Anger at things that happen shows small wit;

For all our wrath concerns them not a bit.’

Attributed to an unknown poet in Plutarch

I:5

‘I put my trust easily in another man’s word. But I should do so reluctantly whenever I would give the impression of acting from despair and want of courage rather than freely and through trust in his honesty.’

I:9

‘We are men, and hold together, only by our word.

I:11

‘The frenzied curiosity of our nature, which wastes its time anticipating future things, as if it did not have enough to do digesting the present.’

I:14

‘I live from day to day, and content myself with having enough to meet my present and ordinary needs; for the extraordinary, all the provision in the world could not suffice.’

I:20

‘It is uncertain where death awaits us; let us await it everywhere.’

‘When death comes, let it find me at my work.’

Attributed to Ovid

I:24

‘An able reader often discovers in other men’s writings perfections beyond those that the author put in or perceived, and lends them richer meanings and aspects.’

I:25

‘We should [ask] who is better learned, not who is more learned. We labour only to fill our memory, and leave the understanding and the conscience empty.’

I:26

‘Learning, even when it is taken most directly, can only teach us about wisdom, integrity and resolution … Put [your] children from the first in contact with deeds, and instruct them, not by hearsay, but by the test of action, forming and moulding them in a living way, not only by precepts and words, but principally by examples and works; so that learning might be not merely a knowledge in their soul, but its character and habit; not an acquisition but a natural possession.’

‘For doubting pleases me no less than knowing.’

Attributed to Dante

I:30

‘The archer who overshoots the target misses as much as the one who does not reach it.’

I:32

‘Who does not willingly exchange health, rest and life for reputation and glory, the most useless, worthless, and false coin that is current among us?’

I:42

‘It is the enjoying, not the possessing, that makes us happy.’

I:53

‘Everything, no matter what it is, that falls within our knowledge and enjoyment, we find unsatisfactory; and we go gaping after things to come and unknown, inasmuch as things present do not satiate us. Not, in my opinion, that they do not have the wherewithal to satiate us, but that we seize them with a sick and disordered grasp … Our appetite is irresolute and uncertain: It does not know how to keep anything or enjoy anything in the right way. Man, thinking that it is the fault of these things, fills and feeds himself on other things that he does not know and does not understand, to which he applies his desires and his hopes, and which he holds in honour and reverence.’

I:54

‘It is a marvelous testimony of the weakness of our judgement that it recommends things for their rarity or novelty, or even for their difficulty, even if they are neither good nor useful.’

I:56

‘We must not ask that all things should obey our will, but that our will should obey wisdom.’

Therefore I must conclude this post with the following:

I:26

‘Since it is philosophy that teaches us to live, and since there is a lesson in it for childhood as well as for the other ages, why is it not imparted to children?’