Pierre Charron Quotes on Knowledge
Pierre Charron (1541–1603), the French theologian and friend of Montaigne, gave the late-Renaissance skeptical fideist position its most systematic statement in Of Wisdom (De la Sagesse, 1601). The work draws extensively on the Essays for its psychological and ethical material but reorganizes Montaigne's discontinuous reflections into a tripartite philosophical treatise on self-knowledge, the conditions of wisdom, and the practical rules of life. The framework sharply separates human wisdom — possible only through the recognition of the limits of natural reason — from the theological knowledge available exclusively through divine revelation.
Quotes
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Attributed to Pierre Charron:
“Self-knowledge is the foundation of all wisdom.”
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Attributed to Pierre Charron:
“The wise person preserves the freedom of judgment in all things.”
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Attributed to Pierre Charron:
“Doubt rightly held is the sister of certainty.”
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“La vraie science et le vrai étude de l'homme c'est l'homme.”
The proper Science and Subject for Man's Contemplation is Man himself. | Book I, Ch. 1. Stanhope 's translation, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922) p. 488. Different translation in H. L. Mencken (ed.) A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles ( 1960) p. 739: "The true science and study of man is man. -
“The proper Science and Subject for Man's Contemplation is Man himself.”
La vraie science et le vrai étude de l'homme c'est l'homme. -
“Book I, Ch. 1. Stanhope 's translation, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1922) p. 488. Different translation in H. L. Mencken (ed.) A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles ( 1960) p. 739: "The true science and study of man is man.”
La vraie science et le vrai étude de l'homme c'est l'homme. -
“All Religions have this in common, that they are an outrage to common sense for they are pieced together out of a variety of elements, some of which seem so unworthy, sordid and at odds with man’s reason, that any strong and vigorous intelligence laughs at them; but others are so noble, illustrious, miraculous, and mysterious that the intellect can make no sense of them and finds them unpalatable.”
Book II, Ch. 5, p. 345. Reported in Michael Hunter and David Wootton (eds.) Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (1992) p. 99 -
“Those who have nothing else to recommend them to the respect of others but only their blood, cry it up at a great rate, and have their mouths perpetually full of it. They swell and vapor, and you are sure to hear of their families and relations every third word.”
p. 22 ( Ancestry ) -
“The certain way to be cheated is to fancy one's self more cunning than others.”
p. 86 ( Conceit ) -
“Despair is like forward children, who, when you take away one of their playthings, throw the rest into the fire for madness. It grows angry with itself, turns its own executioner, and revenges its misfortunes on its own head.”
p. 123 ( Despair ) -
“Wise men mingle mirth with their cares, as a help either to forget or overcome them; but to resort to intoxication for the ease of one's mind is to cure melancholy by madness.”
Treasury of Thought(1881) | p. 268 ( Intemperance )