Freemasonry and sincerity

You’ve been there before: a meeting where someone delivers an eloquent speech, yet afterward you wonder — what was actually said? Or a conversation where someone uses just a few words and hits the mark perfectly. Michel de Montaigne recognized this difference back in the sixteenth century. In his essay “On a Saying of Caesar’s,” he dissects the gap between eloquence and authenticity. For Freemasons, this touches something essential: how do you build real connection — not through rhetoric, but through sincerity? This article translates Montaigne’s insights into concrete steps you can put into practice starting tomorrow. When Words Block Rather Than Build Connection Picture this: you’re sitting in a meeting, a lodge evening, or even a dinner with friends. Someone launches into a lengthy speech. The sentences are polished, the arguments sound convincing. But when the conversation ends, you feel a strange emptiness. Much was said, but nothing truly landed. Montaigne describes exactly this phenomenon when he reflects on the way Julius Caesar expressed himself. Caesar was renowned for his direct, spare style. No embellishment, no rhetorical tricks. What he wrote, he meant — and what he meant, he wrote without preamble. Montaigne poses an uncomfortable question: do we […]