Michel de Montaigne Quotes

I know too much to be a sceptic and too little to be a dogmatist.

I believe in an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.

People who know me know that I'm always interested in an honest, civil exchange of views, and I'm not some Hollywood liberal know-nothing.

When I spend a lot of time reading, discussing, or thinking about an area, I'll often really appreciate why a strong viewpoint is true and come to very firm conclusions. But if I am later exposed to a strong opposing view, I frequently find this countervailing view persuasive as well.

The intellectual ... may live for ideas, as I have said, but something must prevent him from living for one idea, from becoming obsessive or grotesque. Although there have been zealots whom we may still regard as intellectuals, zealotry is a defect of the breed and not of the essence.

Buddhism strongly discourages blind faith and fanaticism.

You mustn’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.

It is better to be a fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity. Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind. For God's sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself!

If you attack Stupidity you attack an entrenched interest with friends in government and every walk of public life.

The acquisition of knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.

The calmer thought is not always the right thought, just as the distant view is not always the truest view

I wish I were dumber so I could be more certain about my opinions. It looks fun.

The most essential mental quality for a free people, whose liberty is to be progressive, permanent and on a large scale, is much stupidity.

It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he doesn't know the nature of the universe but still gives some credence to myths. So without the study of nature there is no enjoyment of pure pleasure.

There is a distinct difference between having an open mind and having a hole in your head from which your brain leaks out.

A ginooine statesman should be on his guard, if he must hev beliefs, not to b'lieve 'em too hard.

The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on 'I am not too sure'.

The sooner we can separate salvageable skeptics from self-righteous absolutists, the sooner we can move along.

Even as a youngster, though, I could not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presented danger, the solution was ignorance.

The beliefs which we have most warrant for have no safeguard to rest on but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded. If the challenge is not accepted, or is accepted and the attempt fails, we are far enough from certainty still; but we have done the best that the existing state of human reason admits of; we have neglected nothing that could give the truth a chance of reaching us.

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything. The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead.

Am I an intellectual? I don't think so. Less than people sometimes think, I have to say. But more than some others think.

Only two kinds of people can attain self-knowledge: those who are not encumbered at all with learning, that is to say, whose minds are not over-crowded with thoughts borrowed from others; and those who, after studying all the scriptures and sciences, have come to realise that they know nothing.

Most often people seek in life occasions for persisting in their opinions rather than for educating themselves.

It is not possible to be a scientist unless you believe that it is good to learn... that it is of the highest value to share your knowledge... with anyone who is interested... that the knowledge of the world, and the power which this gives, is a thing which is of intrinsic value to humanity