Montaigne: Selected Essays

For Montaigne, the true source of wisdom is not man’s accumulated knowledge but Nature herself. Her advice springs forth in our intuition and common sense, and if we study the natural world we can decipher more of her guidance. Montaigne shuns the advice of learned men and instead consults his own heart and feelings for the conduct of his life. He makes exception to study the wisdom of ancient Greek and Roman writers, who themselves respect and adhere to the teachings of Nature.

Montaigne consults his own bodily wisdom in deciding what to eat and drink and how much, when to sleep, and so forth: “I have never suffered harm from any activity that was really pleasant to me” (251).

It’s good to do good, but better to be virtuous. Virtue involves a struggle against selfish desires, and the willingness, when called upon, to sacrifice one’s interests to those of a greater good. For Montaigne, the finest heroes of virtue live in past ages; he cites Socrates, Cato the Younger, and Seneca as archetypes.

One of the ironies of virtue, for Montaigne, is that its greatest practitioners become so adept at virtue that they no longer struggle to achieve it, and this ease of action may cause their virtue to devolve back into mere goodness.