Michel de Montaigne

“ Great abuses in the world are begotten, or, to speak more boldly, all the
abuses of the world are begotten, by our being taught to be afraid of
professing our ignorance, and that we are bound to accept all things we
are not able to refute: we speak of all things by precepts and decisions. ”

“ Let
not us seek illusions from without and unknown, we who are perpetually
agitated with illusions domestic and our own. Methinks one is pardonable
in disbelieving a miracle, at least, at all events where one can elude
its verification as such, by means not miraculous; and I am of St.
Augustine's opinion, that, "'tis better to lean towards doubt than
assurance, in things hard to prove and dangerous to believe." ”

“ So has it
happened in the school of philosophy: the pride of those who attributed
the capacity of all things to the human mind created in others, out of
despite and emulation, this opinion, that it is capable of nothing: the
one maintain the same extreme in ignorance that the others do in
knowledge ”

“ The witches of my neighbourhood run the hazard of their lives upon the
report of every new author who seeks to give body to their dreams. To
accommodate the examples that Holy Writ gives us of such things, most
certain and irrefragable examples, and to tie them to our modern events,
seeing that we neither see the causes nor the means, will require another
sort-of wit than ours. It, peradventure, only appertains to that sole
all-potent testimony to tell us. "This is, and that is, and not that
other." God ought to be believed; and certainly with very good reason ”

“ As to the
oppositions and arguments that worthy men have made to me, both there,
and often in other places, I have met with none that have convinced me,
and that have not admitted a more likely solution than their conclusions. ”

“ Torquato Tasso, in the comparison he makes betwixt France and Italy,
says that he has observed that our legs are generally smaller than those
of the Italian gentlemen, and attributes the cause of it to our being
continually on horseback; which is the very same cause from which
Suetonius draws a quite opposite conclusion; for he says, on the
contrary, that Germanicus had made his legs bigger by the continuation of
the same exercise.
Nothing is so supple and erratic as our understanding; it is the shoe of
Theramenes, fit for all feet. ”

“ I might also
say of these, that the jaggling about whilst so sitting at work, rouses
and provokes their desire, as the swinging and jolting of coaches does
that of our ladies.
Do not these examples serve to make good what I said at first: that our
reasons often anticipate the effect, and have so infinite an extent of
jurisdiction that they judge and exercise themselves even on inanity
itself and non-existency? ”

“ As to drugs and poisons, I throw them out of my count, as being the worst
sort of homicides: yet even in this, 'tis said, that men are not always
to rely upon the personal confessions of these people; for they have
sometimes been known to accuse themselves of the murder of persons who
have afterwards been found living and well. In these other extravagant
accusations, I should be apt to say, that it is sufficient a man, what
recommendation soever he may have, be believed as to human things ”

“ Deor., iii. 20.]
admiration is the foundation of all philosophy, inquisition the progress,
ignorance the end. But there is a sort of ignorance, strong and
generous, that yields nothing in honour and courage to knowledge; an
ignorance which to conceive requires no less knowledge than to conceive
knowledge itself. I read in my younger years a trial that Corras,
[A celebrated Calvinist lawyer, born at Toulouse; 1513, and
assassinated there, 4th October 1572.]
a councillor of Toulouse, printed, of a strange incident, of two men who
presented themselves the one for the other. ”

“ Bissextile, which is in some sort a day of impediment and trouble, till
we had exactly satisfied this debt, the which itself is not done by this
correction, and we yet remain some days in arrear: and yet, by this
means, such order might be taken for the future, arranging that after the
revolution of such or such a number of years, the supernumerary day might
be always thrown out, so that we could not, henceforward, err above
four-and-twenty hours in our computation. We have no other account of
time but years; the world has for many ages made use of that only ”

“ Cupidine humani ingenii libentius obscura creduntur."
["Men are most apt to believe what they least understand: and from
the acquisitiveness of the human intellect, obscure things are more
easily credited." The second sentence is from Tacitus, Hist. 1. 22.] ”