Bokelskere.no

It's always a pleasure -- and who knew this better than Montaigne? -- to observe a prudent man in his folly, and a free man who despises all ceremony, in his vanity.

But what is so magnificent, so philanthropic in his case, is that when [Montesqieu] posed this question: "How should I live?" he did not insist on following it up with: "This is how you should live!"

When I pick up the Essais, the printed paper dissolves in the half-light of the room. Someone breathes, someone lives in me, a stranger has approached me, and now he is no longer a stranger, but an intimate, a friend.

In [Montaigne] I see the ancestor, the protector and the friend of each "homme libre [frie menneske] on earth, the most adept master at this new yet eternal science, the preserving of oneself above all other concerns.