On Solitude
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Blending intellectual speculation with anecdote and personal reflection, the Renaissance thinker and writer Montaigne pioneered the modern essay. This selection contains his idiosyncratic and timeless writings on subjects as varied as the virtues of solitude, the power of the imagination, the pleasures of reading, the importance of sleep and why we sometimes laugh and cry at the same things. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
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This is a great little book, and an excellent ‘user friendly' introduction to modern philosophy. Michel de Montaigne is famous for pioneering what we now call the essay, however I deem him worthy of new fame: making philosophy accessible, funny, and functional. In ‘On Solitude' he reflects on all sorts of odd and every-day facets, such as why we laugh and cry at the same time, why reading brings joy, why fear is the most powerful emotion of all, and (of course) what solitude is. Check this book out if you're in for a quick-ish read but wants something you can scan over a second or third time to extract extra cool insights.
From “On Books”:
“I do not doubt that I often happen to talk of things which are treated better in the writings of master-craftsmen, and with more authenticity. What you have here is purely an assay of my natural, not at all of my acquired, abilities. Anyone who catches me out in ignorance does me no harm: I cannot vouch to other people for my reasonings: I can scarcely vouch for them to myself and am by no means satisfied with them. If anyone is looking for knowledge let him go where such fish are to be caught; there is nothing I lay claim to less. These are my own thoughts, by which I am striving to make known not matter but me. Perhaps I shall master that matter one day; or perhaps I did do so once when Fortune managed to bring me to places where light is thrown on it. But I no longer remember anything about that. I may be a man of fairly wide reading, but I retain nothing.
“So I guarantee you nothing for certain, except my making known what point I have so far reached in my knowledge of it.
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“When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing.”
