Quote

The plague of man is the opinion of knowledge. That is why ignorance is so recommended by our religion as a quality suitable to belief and obedience.

Michel de Montaigne

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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
Knowledge
Recommended
Religion
Suitable
Men
Plague
Obedience
Ignorance
Opinion
Quality
Belief

More quotes by Michel de Montaigne

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The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.
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Honesty is a question of right and wrong, not a matter of policy
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The world is but a perpetual see-saw.
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Amongst so many borrowed things, am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.
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Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant.
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For table-talk, I prefer the pleasant and witty before the learned and the grave in bed, beauty before goodness.
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Whatever I may be, I want to be elsewhere than on paper. My art and my industry have been employed in making myself good for something my studies, in teaching me to do, not to write. I have put all my efforts into forming my life. That is my trade and my work.
Michel de Montaigne
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Every one is well or ill at ease, according as he finds himself! not he whom the world believes, but he who believes himself to be so, is content and in him alone belief gives itself being and reality
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I care not so much what I am to others as what I am to myself. I will be rich by myself, and not by borrowing.
Michel de Montaigne
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Any time and any place can be used to study: his room, a garden, is table, his bed when alone or in company morning and evening. His chief study will be Philosophy, that Former of good judgement and character who is privileged to be concerned with everything.
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A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom.
Michel de Montaigne
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The world always looks straights ahead as for me, I turn my gaze inward, I fix it there and keep it busy. Everyone looks in front of him: as for me, I look inside me: I have no business but with myself I continually observe myself, I take stock of myself, I taste myself. Others...they always go forward as for me, I roll about in myself.
Michel de Montaigne
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If I were of the trade, I should naturalize art as much as they artialize nature.
Michel de Montaigne
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Socrates thought and so do I that the wisest theory about the gods is no theory at all.
Michel de Montaigne
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The only good histories are those written by those who had command in the events they describe.
Michel de Montaigne
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... whoever believes anything esteems that it is a work of charity to persuade another of it.
Michel de Montaigne
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Who ever saw a doctor use the prescription of his colleague without cutting out or adding something?
Michel de Montaigne
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Men ... are not agreed about any one thing, not even that heaven is over our heads.
Michel de Montaigne
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We should spread joy, but, as far as we can, repress sorrow.
Michel de Montaigne
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A man should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey, and above all things look he have then nothing to do but with himself.
Michel de Montaigne