Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne (28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592) was a French magistrate who retired to his tower library and, by writing down whatever crossed his mind, more or less invented the personal essay. His Essais first appeared in 1580 and he kept expanding them until his death; Wikipedia notes ↗ that in his own lifetime he was admired more as a statesman — he served in the Bordeaux Parlement and as the city’s mayor — than as an author. The friendship recorded in this quote was with Étienne de La Boétie, a fellow magistrate three years his senior who died in 1563.