“The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness... ” Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) One of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, famous for his massive volume Essais which contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. Topics included his disdain for the human pursuit of lasting fame, his attempts to detach himself from worldly things, his disgust with the religious conflicts of his time, the inability of humans to attain true certainty, favoring concrete examples and experience in education over the teaching of abstract knowledge and that the point of education was to teach a student how to have a successful life by practicing an active and socially interactive lifestyle. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers including René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Isaac Asimov & William Shakespeare.
Posted on: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 22:40:41 +0000
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