300 Quotes of French Philosophy

Written by Michel de Montaigne, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire

Narrated by Katie Haigh

French philosophy has been led on by three most influent thinkers, each one bordering on literature and bringing new understandings to politics, philosophy, and religion.

Michel de Montaigne is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre; his style merges casual anecdotes and autobiography with deep intellectual insights. His "Essays" are among the most influential ever written; one can recognize Montaigne's direct influence on great literary figures all over the world, from René Descartes to Nietzsche, Isaac Asimov, and possibly William Shakespeare.

Two centuries after him, Jean-Jacques Rousseau keyed the modern genre of autobiography, vastly influenced the development of the Enlightenment through his political philosophy, and helped develop modern educational thought, although his book on the question outraged the French parliament so much that an arrest order was issued against him.

His lifelong adversary Voltaire was a French writer famous for his wit and irony, his tools for launching vitriolic attacks on the established Catholic church, the adversaries of freedom of religion and expression, and on separation of church and state.

Each one of these great thinkers has had a tremendous influence on the rise and shape of modern thought. This audiobook is a careful compilation of essential quotes summarizing their fundamental ideas, for you to get acquainted with the subtleties of their works in a practical format that will add to your culture and understanding of modern philosophy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Astorg Audio
• Release date: Jan 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9782821109407

Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was a French philosopher, essayist, and statesman. Born in Aquitaine at the Château de Montaigne, he was raised in a wealthy and powerful family with Spanish, Portuguese, and Sephardic Jewish ancestry. Educated by tutors from his father’s humanist circle, he went on to study under Latin scholar George Buchanan at the College of Guienne in Bordeaux. After completing a law degree, he was appointed counselor of the Parlement in Bordeaux and from 1561 to 1563 served as a courtier to Charles IX. After retiring from public life in 1871, he began working on his celebrated Essais (1580). Believed to be inspired by the loss of his dear friend Étienne de La Boétie, a prominent humanist and poet of the French Renaissance, the Essais contain Montaigne’s reflections on literature, the classics, philosophy, human nature, and selfhood. Considered a landmark work of pre-Enlightenment French philosophy, Montaigne’s magnum opus both popularized the essay as a literary form and influenced a wide range of Western thinkers, including William Shakespeare, René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche.