Q0237

Michel de Montaigne

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own custom.
Thinker Michel de Montaigne
School Renaissance Humanism
Source Essays I.31
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Essays I.31, 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 philosophy, 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.). Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own custom. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0237

MLA: Michel de Montaigne. “Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0237.

Chicago: Michel de Montaigne. “Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0237.

Same thinker

More from Michel de Montaigne

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

All quotations by Michel de Montaigne

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme