“I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have.”

Book III, Ch. 13. Of Experience
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numb…" by Michel De Montaigne?
Michel De Montaigne photo
Michel De Montaigne 264
(1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, … 1533–1592

Related quotes

Robert Walpole photo

“I dare be bold to affirm that, had the King of France beaten us, as we have done him, he would have been so modest as to have given us better terms than we have gained after all our glorious victories.”

Robert Walpole (1676–1745) British statesman

Source: Address https://historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/walpole-robert-ii-1676-1745 to the electors of Kings Lynn for the general election of 1713 against the Treaty of Utrecht

Robert E. Lee photo

“I think it would be better for Virginia if she could get rid of them. That is no new opinion with me. I have always thought so, and have always been in favor of emancipation - gradual emancipation.”

Robert E. Lee (1807–1870) Confederate general in the Civil War

Testimony to the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction (17 February 1866) responding to a question on relocating freed slaves to other states as quoted in Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction at the First Session Thirty-Ninth Congress https://books.google.com/books?id=dUgWAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1866), pp. 135-6.
1860s

Frederick Douglass photo
Francis Bacon photo

“It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion, as is unworthy of him. For the one is unbelief, the other is contumely”

Of Superstition
Essays (1625)
Context: It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion, as is unworthy of him. For the one is unbelief, the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity.

John Brown (abolitionist) photo

“Had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment. This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!”

John Brown (abolitionist) (1800–1859) American abolitionist

Provisional Constitution and Ordinances (1858), Speech to the Court (1859)

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex photo

“I have meddled in so many matters under your Highness that I am not able to answer them all…but hard it is for me or any other meddling as I have done to live under your grace and your laws but we must daily offend.”

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (1485–1540) English statesman and chief minister to King Henry VIII of England

Source: Letter to Henry VIII whilst imprisoned in the Tower of London. (Merriman, ii. p. 266.)

Francis Bacon photo

“It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion, as is unworthy of him. For the one is unbelief, the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Superstition

Arshile Gorky photo

“Art comes instinctively to us, but it is so uncertain. I have in front of me photographs of all Picasso’s best works. The mere I admire them the further I feel myself removed from all art, it seems so easy, so limited! We are part of the world creation, and we ourselves create nothing.”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

Source: 1930 - 1941, from 'Arshile Gorky, – Goats on the roof' (2009), p. 168: in a letter to his future wife Agnes Magruder (Mougouch), 7 Mai 1941

Ai Weiwei photo

“We have to give our opinion, we have to say something, or we are a part of it. As an artist I am forced to say something.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Ai Weiwei, Nursing Head Wound, Sharpens Criticism, 2009

Kent Hovind photo

Related topics