Two Ways to See the World — The Essays of Montaigne

Montaigne says judgment touches every subject; he samples topics without exhausting them, taking one face of a thing and leaving the rest.

Things enter us stripped and recolored by the soul: death frightens Cicero, tempts Cato, and meets Socrates indifferently; even chess exposes anger and petty ambition.

Democritus laughed at human folly, Heraclitus wept over it; Montaigne prefers laughter because it expresses deeper contempt than pity, which still values what it mourns.

Diogenes rolled in his tub and thought us flies; Timon hated mankind enough to flee them. Montaigne sides with the laugh: our condition is ridiculous enough without pretending it deserves tragic dignity.