Montaigne essay notes

Essays of Montaigne Notes

On Sadness

·        It’s about sadness being ever present in human passion.

·        Montaigne uses references from the past to show how sorrow affects humans.

·        The story about the king of Egypt makes it seem like sadness truly sets in when you feel guilt or shame.

·        Montaigne presents sadness as something humans can bear only so much of, for example a cup being filled with water until it overflows.

·        In order for us to move past tragic events, we must show emotion to free our soul from the entanglements of sadness.

·        When one emotion is expressed, it opens up the door to all other emotions, an example would be crying out in joy.

·        Montaigne points out that while happiness is on the opposite end of the spectrum from sadness both emotions and all in between are evident when any emotion is felt.

·        Montaigne uses logos to explain man’s ability to endure sadness when he talks about the king of Egypt.

On Idleness

·        Montaigne opens this essay with a field of weeds that need be taken care of by human activity or it will grow too vast.

·        Montaigne knows that idleness can clear the mind but he wants to use it to produce ideas he couldn’t think of regularly because he knows the most risky ideas can become the most revolutionary foundations.

·        Vacations are a good way to refresh your mind, but if you isolate yourself for a long time, your mind will just end up going crazy because it has no reference point.

·        Montaigne states that he escaped into a haven of solitude in order to free his mind of all obstacles to make it mature, but rather it took his ability in imagining the wildest of things.

·        When our mind is in this state of having no purpose it can still produce ideas, some useful and some useless.

·        Montaigne points out that without a definite purpose, the mind will become surely become lost.

·        The idea that if something is left unattended it will spring out of control is a logical thought but I don’t think it’s always true.

  

On liars

·         “One of the old church Fathers says that even a dog we do know is better company than a man whose language we do not know.” Ethos is evident when referring his “Church Fathers” on the subject.

·        Montaigne makes a distinction between liars and truth tellers by claiming that liars basically speak a foreign language to everyone.

·        Montaigne defends his claims by stating that liars don’t know how to stop lying so their lies make them less than human.

·        If lying was a major crime, then it would encroach on upon our freedom of speech.

·        When Montaigne talks about lying, he thinks it should be considered a major crime which sounds like a hyperbole to me.

·        He makes fun of elderly people when they tell their dull stories of the past and he laughs at himself since he is doing that as well.

·        Montaigne approaches the subject by discussing how one’s memory is important and how an “evil memory” could end up making you a liar.