Loading...Kings and philosophers shit, and so do ladies
Forgive the crude language but the idea is a good one. It was coined in the 16th-century by French philosopher Michel de Montaigne. His point was that he wanted us to feel closer to (and less intimidated) by people whose overt mode of life might seem painfully impressive and very far from our own.
And he could have added: in secret, these people also feel inadequate, fear rejection and mess up their sex lives. At moments of panic, before an important speech or a much-anticipated date, we should run Montaigne’s phrase through our febrile, underconfident minds and remind ourselves that no one, however outwardly poised, is more than a few hours away from a poignantly modest and vulnerable moment.
Nice idea but what does Montaigne know?
Though a practicing Catholic, Montaigne was a thoroughgoing skeptic. Man can know nothing, his reason being insufficient to arrive either at a natural-law ethics or a firm theology. As Montaigne put it, “reason does nothing but go astray in everything, and especially when it meddles with divine things.” And for a while, Montaigne adopted as his official motto the query, “What do I know?”
Mentioned in a TED by De Botton, worth watching, humbling for high-horse philosophers to say the least.
Here’s the video on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtSE4rglxbY
For better context – you can read part of his work on Google Books