The thing I fear most is fear. - Michel de Montaigne

There is no wish more natural than the wish to know.

Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at the expense of life.

In my country, and in my time, learning improves fortunes enough, but not minds; if it meet with those that are dull and heavy, it overcharges and suffocates them, leaving them a crude and undigested mass; if airy and fine, it purifies, clarifies, and subtilizes them, even to exinanition.