“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”
La plus grande chose du monde, c'est de savoir être à soi.
Book I, Ch. 39
Essais (1595), Book I
Source: The Complete Essays
“They make me hate things that are likely, when they would impose them upon me as infallible.”
Book II, Ch. 12: Apology for Raimond Sebond
Essais (1595), Book II
Context: Great abuses in the world are begotten, or, to speak more boldly, all the abuses of the world are begotten, by our being taught to be afraid of professing our ignorance, and that we are bound to accept all things we are not able to refute: we speak of all things by precepts and decisions. The style at Rome was that even that which a witness deposed to having seen with his own eyes, and what a judge determined with his most certain knowledge, was couched in this form of speaking: “it seems to me.” They make me hate things that are likely, when they would impose them upon me as infallible.
Book II, Ch. 12: Apology for Raimond Sebond
Essais (1595), Book II
Context: Great abuses in the world are begotten, or, to speak more boldly, all the abuses of the world are begotten, by our being taught to be afraid of professing our ignorance, and that we are bound to accept all things we are not able to refute: we speak of all things by precepts and decisions. The style at Rome was that even that which a witness deposed to having seen with his own eyes, and what a judge determined with his most certain knowledge, was couched in this form of speaking: “it seems to me.” They make me hate things that are likely, when they would impose them upon me as infallible.
“A little of all things, but nothing of everything, after the French manner.”
On the education of children; Book I, Chapter 26
Essais (1595), Book I
“How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which today are fables for us?”
Combien de choses nous servoyent hier d’articles de foy, qui nous sont fables aujourd’huy?
Book I, Ch. 27
Essais (1595), Book I
Source: The Complete Essays
“No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately.”
Book III, Ch. 1
Attributed
Source: The Complete Essays
“The thing I fear most is fear.”
C'est de quoi j'ai le plus de peur que la peur.
Book I, ch, 18
Essais (1595), Book I
Source: The Complete Essays
Book II, Ch. 12
Essais (1595), Book II
Attributed
“Things are not bad in themselves, but our cowardice makes them so.”
Book I, Ch. 14
Essais (1595), Book I