I speak ignorance pompously and opulently, and speak knowledge meagerly and piteously, the latter secondarily and accidentally, the former expressly and principally. And there is nothing I treat specifically except nothing, and no knowledge except that of the lack of knowledge. I have chosen the time when my life, which I have to portray, lies all before my eyes; what is left is more related to death. And even of my death, if I should find it garrulous, as others do, I would willingly give an account to the public on my way out.

From Montaigne’s Complete Essays, translated by Donald M. Frame, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1958, p. 809.