Michel de Montaigne Quotes About Authority

Quotes about: Authority

• He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Anger, Noise, Arguing

  Attributed to "Essais" by Michel de Montaigne, 1595.

• Laws are often made by fools, and even more often by men who fail in equity because they hate equality: but always by men, vain authorities who can resolve nothing.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Hate, Men, Law

• Socrates and then Archesilaus used to make their pupils speak first; they spoke afterwards. 'Obest plerumque iss discere volunt authoritas eorum qui docent.' [For those who want to learn, the obstacle can often be the authority of those who teach]

  Michel de Montaigne

  Educational, Often Is, Want

  Michel de Montaigne (1991). “The essays of Michel de Montaigne”, Lane, Allen

• Laws gain their authority from actual possession and custom: it is perilous to go back to their origins; laws, like our rivers, get greater and nobler as they roll along: follow them back upstream to their sources and all you find is a tiny spring, hardly recognizable; as time goes by it swells with pride and grows in strength.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Spring, Pride, Law

  Michel de Montaigne (1991). “The essays of Michel de Montaigne”, Lane, Allen

• Laws are maintained in credit, not because they are essentially just, but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Power, Law, Justice

  Michel de Montaigne (1964). “Selected essays of Montaigne: in the translation of John Florio”

• My library is my kingdom, and here I try to make my rule absolute-shutting off this single nook from wife, daughter and society. Elsewhere I have only a verbal authority, and vague. Unhappy is the man, in my opinion, who has no spot at home where he can be at home to himself-to court himself and hide away.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Daughter, Home, Men

  Michel de Montaigne (1956). “Autobiography: Comprising the Life of the Wisest Man of His Times ...”

• And truly Philosophy is but sophisticated poetry. Whence do those ancient writers derive all their authority but from the poets?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Poetry

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

• Almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and on credit.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Trust, Truth, Taken

  Michel de Montaigne (1603). “Essayes”

• Custom is a violent and treacherous school mistress. She, by little and lithe, slyly and unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority; but having by this gentle and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we have no more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Humble, School, Eye

• The laws keep up their credit, not by being just, but because they are laws; 'tis the mystic foundation of their authority; they have no other, and it well answers their purpose. They are often made by fools; still oftener by men who, out of hatred to equality, fail in equity; but always by men, vain and irresolute authors.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Law, Hatred

  Michel de Montaigne (1877). “The Essays of Montaigne”, p.386

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