Q0051

Michel de Montaigne

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

To philosophize is to learn how to die.
Thinker Michel de Montaigne
School Renaissance Humanism
Source Essays I.20
Theme Death
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Essays I.20, within the tradition of Renaissance Humanism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of death, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Michel de Montaigne's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Michel de Montaigne. (n.d.). To philosophize is to learn how to die. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0051

MLA: Michel de Montaigne. “To philosophize is to learn how to die..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0051.

Chicago: Michel de Montaigne. “To philosophize is to learn how to die..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0051.

Same thinker

More from Michel de Montaigne

  1. What do I know?
  2. The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
  3. The usefulness of living is not in length of days, but in their use: one may have lived long, and yet have lived little.
  4. Better a well-made head than a well-filled head.
  5. I do not portray being. I portray passing.

All quotations by Michel de Montaigne

Same theme

More on death

  1. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  2. He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.
  3. Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.
  4. Therefore death is nothing to us, and does not concern us at all.
  5. Depart then in peace; the one who releases you is also at peace.

Browse the death theme