Obstinacy and heat of opinion is the surest proof of stupidity. Is there anything so certain, resolute, disdainful, contemplative, grave, and serious as an ass?
L'obstination et ardeur d'opinion, est la plus seure preuve de bestise. Est il rien certain, resolu, dedeigneux, contemplatif, serieux, grave, comme l'asne?
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Thursday, October 12, 2017
The Surest Proof of Stupidity
Montaigne (1533-1592), Essais 8.3 (tr. Donald M. Frame):