Michel de Montaigne Quotes on Truth
Michel de Montaigne, the inventor of the essay, made a temperate scepticism the keynote of his attitude toward truth, and the quotes gathered here express it. His motto, what do I know, captures a mind that distrusts certainty, and he observes shrewdly that nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know. Montaigne treats truth-telling as a personal discipline practised within honest limits: he speaks the truth, he says, not his fill of it but as much as he dares, daring a little more as he grows old. He holds that human beings are made to seek truth rather than to possess it, for the possession of truth belongs to a greater power. Drawn from the Essais, these passages show truth as an object of lifelong, modest inquiry.
Quotes
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“What do I know?”
Ch. 16. Of Glory (tr. Cotton, rev. W. Carew Hazlitt, 1877) -
“Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.”
... il n'est rien creu si fermement que ce qu'on sçait le moins, ... -
“For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits.”
Book III | Ch. 13 -
“The mariner of old said to Neptune in a great tempest, "O God! thou mayest save me if thou wilt, and if thou wilt thou mayest destroy me; but whether or no, I will steer my rudder true."”
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) | Book II, Ch. 16. Of Glory -
“Virtue refuses facility for her companion ... the easy, gentle, and sloping path that guides the footsteps of a good natural disposition is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.”
Book II | Ch. 11. Of Cruelty (tr. Donald M. Frame) -
“I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old.”
Book III | Ch. 2 -
“Apollo said that every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the place where he chanced to be.”
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) | Book II, Ch. 12. Apology for Raimond Sebond -
“I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more as I grow older.”
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) | Book iii. Chap 2. Of Repentance -
“We are born to inquire after truth; it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.”
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) | Book III, Ch. 8. Of the Art of Conversation