This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what ever man persuades another man to believe.
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge. We try all the ways that can lead us to it. When reason fails us, we use experience.. which is a weaker and less dignified means. But truth is so great a thing that we must not disdain any medium that will lead us to it.
Character | Desire | Disdain | Experience | Knowledge | Means | Reason | Truth | Will |
Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The recognition of virtue is not less valuable from the lips of the man who hates it, since truth forces him to acknowledge it; and though he may be unwilling to take it into his inmost soul, he at least decks himself out in its trappings.
Only when we realise that we have no self can we seek ourselves. Only through a flash of truth can one understand ignorance.
Character | Ignorance | Self | Truth | Understand |
I love a serious preacher, who speaks for my sake and not for his own; who seeks my salvation, and not his own vainglory. He best deserves to be heard who uses speech only to clothe his thoughts, and his thoughts only to promote truth and virtue.
Character | Love | Salvation | Speech | Truth | Virtue | Virtue |
Life is sufficiently miraculous already - only we do not notice it. If we catch a glimpse of its mystery, we border momentarily on new emotions and thoughts, but this comes from within, as a momentary, individual awakening of the spirit. Eckhart says that we are at fault as long as we see God in what is outside us... All the liberating inner truth and vision that we need, apart from outer truth and facts about things is... ‘native within us.’
Awakening | Character | Emotions | Fault | God | Individual | Life | Life | Mystery | Need | Spirit | Truth | Vision | God | Fault |
It would truly be a fine thing if men suffered themselves to be guided by reason, that they should acquiesce in the true remonstrances addressed to them by the writings of the learned and the advice of friends. But the greater part are so disposed that the words which enter by one ear do incontinently go out of the other, and begin again by following the custom. The best teacher one can have is necessity.
Advice | Character | Men | Necessity | Words | Following | Teacher |
A teacher should give his pupil opportunity for independent practice without suggestions from himself, and thus set upon him the stamp of indelible memory in its purest form.
Character | Memory | Opportunity | Practice | Teacher |