Quote

Seeing that the Senses cannot decide our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, we must have recourse to Reason there is no reason but must be built upon another reason: so here we are retreating backwards to infinity.

Michel de Montaigne

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Michel de Montaigne
Age: 59 †
Born: 1533
Born: February 28
Died: 1592
Died: September 13
Autobiographer
Essayist
French Moralist
Jurist
Philosopher
Poet Lawyer
Politician
Translator
Writer
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Miquèu Eiquèm de Montanha
Miqueu Eiquem de Montanha
Another
Decide
Soma
Cannot
Senses
Recourse
Body
Medicine
Dispute
Reason
Built
Disputes
Must
Philosophy
Backwards
Mind
Full
Infinity
Seeing
Uncertainty
Upon
Psychology
Retreating

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

Image
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
I do not teach. I relate.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
I have never observed other effects of whipping than to render boys more cowardly, or more willfully obstinate.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
It is in the enjoyment and not in mere possession that makes for happiness.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
To behave rightly, we ourselves should never lay a hand on our servants as long as our anger lasts. Things will seem different to us when we have quieted and cooled down.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
There is a certain amount of purpose, acquiescence, and satisfaction in nursing one's melancholy.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The world is but a school of inquisition it is not who shall enter the ring, but who shall run the best courses.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Rejoice in the things that are present all else is beyond thee.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
We call comeliness a mischance in the first respect, which belongs principally to the face.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The most certain sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
The great and glorious masterpiece of men is to live to the point. All other things-to reign, to hoard, to build-are, at most, but inconsiderable props and appendages.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Teach him a certain refinement in sorting out and selecting his arguments, with an affection for relevance and so for brevity. Above all let him be taught to throw down his arms and surrender to truth as soon as he perceives it, whether the truth is born at his rival's doing or within himself from some change in his ideas.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
What am I to choose? Choose what you please, as long as you choose. There you have a foolish answer, which seems to be the outcome, however, of all Dogmatism, which will not allow us to be ignorant of that which we are ignorant.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
Judgement holds in me a magisterial seat, at least it carefully tries to. It lets my feelings go their way, both hatred and friendship, even the friendship I bear myself, without being changed and corrupted by them.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
A man must either imitate the vicious or hate them.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
There is no doubt that Greek and Latin are great and handsome ornaments, but we buy them too dear.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
As by some might be saide of me: that here I have but gathered a nosegay of strange floures, and have put nothing of mine unto it, but the thred to binde them. Certes, I have given unto publike opinion, that these borrowed ornaments accompany me but I meane not they should cover or hide me.
Michel de Montaigne
Image
One man may have some special knowledge at first-hand about the character of a river or a spring, who otherwise knows only what everyone else knows. Yet to give currency to this shred of information, he will undertake to write on the whole science of physics. From this fault many great troubles spring.
Michel de Montaigne