“Let each person search within themselves, and they will find that our most intimate desires are born and grow, for the most part, to the detriment of others.”
— Michel de Montaigne
Introduction: A Quote That Isn't a Quote (but Seems Like One)
The phrase that opens this essay, attributed to Michel de Montaigne, is one of those maxims that circulate on social media, in self-help books, and in philosophical reflections as if they were absolute truths. However, as often happens with great ideas, its exact formulation does not appear verbatim in the French philosopher’s Essays. What does exist—and with even more compelling force—is the spirit of that statement, scattered across Book I, Chapter XXII (or XXI, depending on the edition), titled "Le profit de l'un est dommage de l'autre" ("The Profit of One Is the Loss of Another").
This brief chapter, spanning barely three paragraphs, is a gem of Renaissance thought. The author is one of the most prominent figures of Renaissance humanist skepticism. Unlike other thinkers who judge humanity from a religious moral standard, Montaigne prefers to use direct observation, psychology, and brutal honesty to analyze the human condition. With his direct style and no concessions to moral hypocrisy, he lays bare an uncomfortable truth: human society operates as a zero-sum game. What one person gains, another loses. And worse still: by probing into our deepest desires, we discover that many of them feed, consciously or unconsciously, on the detriment of others.
The Original Text: An Observation Without Moral Judgments
The key passage from Montaigne reads as follows:
"And what is worse, let every man search within himself, and he shall find that his inward desires are for the most part born and nourished at the expense of another."But here lies the crucial nuance: Montaigne is not issuing a moral judgment. He is not saying that human beings are evil by nature, but rather observing a mechanism. For him, this dynamic is not a condemnation, but a natural law—as inevitable as the cycle of life and death. The merchant prospers through the extravagance of others; the physician, through illness; the soldier, through war; the lawyer, through human conflict and disputes. Even ministers of religion derive their purpose from human vices and mortality.
There is no call to repentance here, but rather an invitation to lucidity. Montaigne, as a true skeptic, does not seek to change human nature, but to understand it in order to coexist with it without self-deception.
The complete text of Montaigne in that chapter is extremely brief—barely three paragraphs—and reads as follows in its literal translation:
"Demades the Athenian condemned a man of his city whose trade was selling necessities for burials, under the pretext that he demanded too much profit, and that this profit could only come to him by the death of many people. This judgment seems to me ill-conceived, because no profit is made except to the detriment of another, and by that standard, all kinds of gain would have to be condemned.
The merchant only succeeds in business through the extravagant spending of youth; the farmer through the scarcity of corn; the architect through the ruin of houses; officers of justice through the lawsuits and disputes of men; the very honor and practice of the ministers of religion are derived from our death and vices. No physician takes pleasure in the health even of his own friends, said the ancient Greek comedian, nor any soldier in the peace of his city; and so of the rest.
And what is worse, let every man search within himself, and he shall find that his inward desires are for the most part born and nourished at the expense of another. Considering which, it comes to my mind how nature does not belie herself in this regarding her general condition; for physicists hold that the birth, increase, and growth of each thing is the alteration and corruption of another."In this short essay, Montaigne argues that human society functions in such a way that the success, gain, or satisfaction of an individual inevitably depends on the misfortune or loss of someone else.
The Modern Misunderstanding: From Observation to Moral Sentence
The popular version of the quote—“Let each person search within themselves, and they will find that our most intimate desires are born and grow, for the most part, to the detriment of others”—is an interpretive paraphrase that heightens the pessimistic tone. While Montaigne limits himself to describing a phenomenon (desire as part of an exchange system where something must yield for another to grow), the modern version sounds like an ethical condemnation.
Why does this difference matter? Because Montaigne is not a moralist. He is not saying that we should feel guilty, but that this is how we are, and that denying it is living in ignorance. His approach is naturalistic: the corruption of one thing is the generation of another, as in an eternal cycle of transformation.
Montaigne in Dialogue: Hobbes, Schopenhauer, and Human Nature
The idea that human desire is linked to the harm of others resonates with other thinkers, though with different nuances:
• Thomas Hobbes and his "man is a wolf to man" view selfishness as the justification for a strong State to contain violence. For Hobbes, the solution is external control. Montaigne starts from a much more intimate and everyday scale. He does not seek to theorize about the social contract or impose a political system; his method is self-observation. By looking inward, he invites us to recognize that societal dynamics are often a zero-sum game: a merchant's success often depends on another's scarcity, an heir's gain requires the death of a relative, and triumph in any realm requires a rival's defeat. While Hobbes uses human selfishness to justify an authoritarian State and social control, Montaigne uses it to invite us to introspection, reminding us that knowing ourselves is the only true path toward tolerance and peace.
• Arthur Schopenhauer, on the other hand, takes pessimism to a metaphysical level: for the German philosopher, desire is the irrational engine of the "Will" that drives individuals to assert themselves at the expense of others. Montaigne anticipates this intuition by noting that desire is neither a neutral nor an innocent impulse; at its deepest root, it often harbors the need to deprive or displace the other to satisfy one's own craving.Montaigne, however, proposes neither political nor metaphysical solutions. It is not about eliminating selfishness (which is impossible), but about recognizing it so as not to be its slave.
What is remarkable about Montaigne is that, despite holding such an uncomfortable mirror up to human nature, his conclusion is neither destructive cynicism nor radical misanthropy, but intellectual honesty and lucidity. Admitting that our desires are born in part from the detriment of others is the first step toward not deceiving ourselves with false sanctity and attempting, through reason and temperance, to cushion the impact of our natural selfishness.
Montaigne’s Solution: Acceptance, Self-Knowledge, and the Inner "Backroom"
Faced with this bleak diagnosis, how does Montaigne live? Not with bitterness, but with serene lucidity. His recipe has three ingredients:
1. Acceptance of imperfection: There is no need to be outraged by the inevitable. Society is competitive; it is part of its essence. Montaigne is not scandalized; he simply assumes his place in the mechanism.
2. The "backroom" (arrière-boutique): A key concept in his philosophy. Even if we participate in the social game (with its ambitions and rivalries), we must reserve an inner space that remains free and unshakable, where our peace does not depend on external fluctuations. It is a refuge of authenticity amidst chaos.
3. Moderation: Self-knowledge allows us to see how our desires can harm others. Reason then invites us to curb excesses, seeking a simple and balanced life.
The Legacy: From Montaigne to Girard, via Nietzsche and Cioran
Montaigne’s intuition was taken up and deepened by other thinkers:
• François de La Rochefoucauld (17th century) dismantles human virtues in his Maxims: what we call "love of neighbor" is often disguised selfishness."In the adversity of our best friends, we always find something that does not displease us."• Friedrich Nietzsche goes further in On the Genealogy of Morality: many "noble" desires (justice, equality) are born out of resentment—the secret desire to weaken, lower, or punish the powerful or the different.
• Emil Cioran (20th century) takes up the spirit of the French moralists with an aphoristic and disillusioned style. For Cioran, action and desire are forms of aggression: desiring something in the world is already a way of asserting oneself over others and displacing their presence. He radicalizes this disillusionment.
• René Girard (Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, Violence and the Sacred) posits that human beings do not desire autonomously. He takes the theory to the extreme with mimetic desire: we do not desire objects, but rather what the other desires, because we take the other as a model, which turns us into natural rivals. Desire, for Girard, is intrinsically conflictual and generates violence; our most intimate desires are born from the attempt to deprive the other of their being or their object.While these authors explore the psychological roots of conflict, Montaigne remains within phenomenological observation: the benefit of one is the detriment of another. There are no judgments, only raw reality.
Conclusion: The Mirror We Cannot Avoid Looking Into
Montaigne holds up a mirror to us: to look within ourselves is to discover that, at heart, many of our desires are built upon the detriment of others. However, unlike moralists or cynics, he does not leave us in despair. His message is twofold:
1. Intellectual honesty: Recognizing our selfish nature is the first step toward not living a lie.
2. Inner freedom: Even if the world operates as a zero-sum game, we do not have to be prisoners of that game. The "backroom"—that space of authenticity—is our sanctuary.In a world where success is measured in likes, wealth accumulation, or victory over others, Montaigne’s reflection remains as relevant as ever. It is not about renouncing desires, but about knowing what we desire and at what price. Because in the end, as he himself would say, true wisdom lies not in changing the world, but in understanding it so as not to let it change us.
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”
— Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book I, Chapter XXXIX
This essay was prepared with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools (Gemini and Mistral AI).
