Frank’s Reviews > The Complete Essays > Status Update

“For likewise these are my humors and opinions; I offer them as what I believe, not what is to be believed. I aim here only at revealing myself, who will perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me. I have no authority to be believed, nor do I want it, feeling myself too ill-instructed to instruct others.” (p. 132)

“On the power of the imagination”

The essay “That to philosophize is to learn to die” is a rhetorical tour de force expounding his personal form of Stoicism. I will be returning to this one many times. It is amazing how much Montaigne’s writing feels like an intimate conversation with the man.

“External circumstances take their savor and color from the inner constitution.” (p. 55)
Essay: That the taste of good and evil depends on our opinion of them