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Two thinkers, side by side

Life

c. 4 BCE – 65 CE

RomanStoic

Born Cordoba

Stoic philosopher, tutor to an emperor, and the richest man in Rome. He wrote about poverty and died by his own hand on Nero's orders.

Montaigne

1533 CE – 1592 CE

SkepticEarly Modern

Born Bordeaux

He invented the essay to ask a single question of everything: what do I know? His honest answer was, almost nothing for certain.

Connection

Seneca the essay's ancestor Montaigne — Montaigne kept Seneca constantly at hand and said so, taking from him the habit of writing philosophy as a personal address rather than a system, which is most of what the essay form became.

Ideas

Stoic Ethics On Anger On the Shortness of Life Duty

Skepticism Methodical Doubt

Words

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
— Seneca

“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a great deal of it.”
— Seneca

“What do I know?”
— Montaigne

Key Moments

c. 4 BCE

Born in Cordoba

41 CE

Exiled to Corsica

49 CE

Recalled to Tutor Nero

62 CE

Moral Letters to Lucilius

1533 CE

Born near Bordeaux

1571 CE

Retreat to the Tower

c. 1580 CE

What Do I Know?

1592 CE

Death at Montaigne

Works

On Anger

The Minor Dialogues

Letters to Lucilius

Essays