“For men believe that their reason governs words, but it is also true that words react on the understanding, and this it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive. Now words, being commonly framed and applied according to the capacity of the vulgar, follow those lines of divsion which are most obvious to the vulgar understanding. And whenever an understanding of greater acuteness of more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the true divisions of nature, words stand in the way and resist change. Whence it comes to pass that the high and formal discussions of learned men end oftentimes in disputes about words and names….”
Frances Bacon, Novum Organum, LIX
“And generally let every student of nature take this as a rule, that whatever his mind seizes and dwells upon with peculiar satisfaction is to be held in suspicion, and that so much the more care is to be taken in dealing with such questions to keep the understanding even and clear.”
Frances Bacon, Novum Organum, LVIII
“The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond.”
Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, XLVIII
“I study myself more than any other subject. That is my metaphysics; that is my physics” (1217)
“To learn that we have said or done a stupid thing is nothing: we must learn a more ample and important lesson: that we are but blockheads” (1219)
Michel de Montaigne “On experience”
“Do we ever agree among ourselves that ‘this book already has enough glosses: from now on there is no more to be said on it?’”
“Do we ever find an end to our need to interpret?”
(Let’s hope not!: “When the mind is satisfied, that is a sign of diminished faculties or weariness” 1211.)
Montaigne, “On Experience,” 1210
“What enriches a language is its being handled and exploited by beautiful minds—not so much by making innovations as by expanding it through more vigorous and varied applications, by extending it and deploying it. It is not words that they contribute: what they do is enrich their words, deepen their meanings and tie down their usage; they teach it unaccustomed rhythms, prudently though and with ingenuity.”
Montaigne, “On some lines of Virgil,” 987
“Oh, what a mad advantage lies in the opportune moment! If anyone were to ask me what is the first quality needed in love I would reply: knowing how to seize an opportunity. It is the second and the third as well.”
Montaigne, “On some lines of Virgil” 978
“ Our power of judgement is a tool to be used on all subjects; it can be applied anywhere.
Michel de Montaigne, “On Democritus and Heraclitus,” 337
“…every man calls barbarous anything he is not accustomed to; it is indeed the case that we have no other criterion of truth or right-reason than the example and form of the opinions and customs of our own country. There we always find the perfect religion, the perfect polity, the most developed and perfect way of doing anything!” (231)
“It does not sadden me that we should note the horrible barbarity in a practice such as theirs: what does sadden me is that, while judging correctly of their wrong-doings we should be so blind to our own” (235).
“So we can indeel call those fold barbarians by the rules of reason but not in comparison with ourselves, who surpass them in every kind of barbarism” (236).
Michel de Montaigne, “On the Cannibals,” The Complete Essays
