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Quotation from Essays by Michel de Montaigne
“Thus, reader, myself am the matter of my book: there’s no reason thou shouldst employ thy leisure about so frivolous and vain a subject”
Essays, 'The Author to the Reader' (dated 12 June 1580), trans. Charles Cotton (1685-1686)
The prefatory note announces the book's unprecedented subject, the author himself, with characteristic self-deprecation.
Citation: "Thus, reader, myself am the matter of my book: there’s no reason thou shouldst employ thy leisure about so frivolous and vain a subject" — Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 'The Author to the Reader' (dated 12 June 1580), trans. Charles Cotton (1685-1686). (id essays-montaigne-q1)
Portrait: Portrait of Michel de Montaigne by unknown painter in the Musée Condé, anonymous, Public domain.
