All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
Michel De MontaigneRead
Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry the progress, ignorance the end.
Interpretation
Wonder inspires philosophical thought, inquiry leads to knowledge, and ignorance halts understanding.
This quote by Michel De Montaigne emphasizes the journey of knowledge and understanding. It suggests that the initial spark of curiosity or wonder is what drives philosophical inquiry, which then progresses toward understanding and learning. However, if one remains ignorant and does not engage in questioning and exploring, they will never reach a deeper comprehension of life and existence.
In practice
During a philosophy class discussion, this quote can be used to highlight the importance of inquiry in learning.
All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.
Pythagoras used to say that life resembles the Olympic Games: a few people strain their muscles to carry off a prize; others bring trinkets to sell to the crowd for gain; and some there are, and not the worst, who seek no other profit than to look at the show and see how and why everything is done; spectators of the life of other people in order to judge and regulate their own.
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
Those who have compared our life to a dream were right... we were sleeping wake, and waking sleep.
Such as are in immediate fear of a losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas such as are actually poor, slaves, or exiles, ofttimes live as merrily as other folk.
And there lies the horror: the past we remember is devoid of time. Impossible to reexperience a love the way we reread a book or resee a film.
Certainly I'll never be able to put myself in the situation that people growing up in the less developed countries are in. I've gotten a bit of a sense of it by being out there and meeting people and talking with them.
You lose the world for a glance? Of course you do. That is what the world is for: to lose under the right circunstances.
It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.
I have always marched to my own beat, and most frequently, it was inconsistent not only with my own immediate family, but with my culture as well.
Of the two powers, the two categories that take possession of us when we enter the world (from where?), space is by far the less mysterious. It, too, undergoes transformations. Time, on the other hand, is a hostile element, truly treacherous, I would even say against human nature.
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