Michel de Montaigne Quotes

But is all this true?" said Brutha. Didactylos shrugged. "Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork." "You mean you don't KNOW it's true?" said Brutha. "I THINK it might be," said Didactylos. "I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.

No one is infallible, and no one can claim a monopoly on truth or virtue. It would be contradictory for skepticism to seek to translate itself into a new faith.

All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability.

On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems like knowledge isn't knowledge

I would say that I'm 98 percent skeptical, but the other 2 percent [is] open for the possibility of things.

A scientist is never certain. ... We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning.

I'm suspicious of too much certainty in the pursuit of understanding just because I think people are limited in their understanding.

The agnostic does not simply say, "l do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know, -- he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact -- he drives you from the realm of reason -- he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture -- into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact.

Belief is in ignorance. If you know, you know. And it is good that if you don’t know, know that you don’t know — the belief can deceive you. The belief can create an atmosphere in your mind, where, without knowing, you start thinking that you know. Belief is not trust, and the more strongly you say that you believe totally, the more you are afraid of the doubt within you.

Belief is tricky because left to its own devices, it can court a kind of surety, an unquestioning allegiance that fears doubt and destroys difference.

I'm very careful not to have ideas, because they're inaccurate.

Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.

Skepticism is not a position that you stake out ahead of time and stick to no matter what.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Never stop paying attention to things. Never make your mind up finally. Do not hold beliefs.

I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I'm wrong, I am inclined to agree with him.

True science teaches, above all, to doubt and to be ignorant.

What is important is that one utilizes one's intellect and not to be 100 percent sure about one's convictions. One should always leave room for doubt.

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

Philosophy goes no further than probabilities, and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve.

There is only one thing about which I am certain, and that is that there is very little about which one can be certain.

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

To me the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can’t give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don’t know anything like enough yet. That I haven’t understood enough. That I can’t know enough. That I’m always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom… Those who tell you that you can only live by accepting an absolute authority: don’t think of that as a gift. Think of it as a poison chalice. Push it aside, however tempting it is. Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.

In philosophy you're never 100% sure. You're always undermining what you think you know. That's always been my philosophy and my intellectual ethos.

Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts, never inquires. To doubt is heresy, to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the Church does neither.