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Who really said it

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know

Written by Michel de Montaigne 1533–1592 · French Renaissance philosopher & inventor of the personal essay
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Genuinely Montaigne. The line closes his essay “That a Man Is Soberly to Judge of the Divine Ordinances” (‘Essais’, Book I, Ch. 31, first published 1580). The familiar English — “that which we least know” — is a light variant of Charles Cotton’s public-domain rendering, “nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know.”

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know” Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know. —Michel de Montaigne, Essais, Book I, ch. 31 (1580), trans. Charles Cotton

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Provenance

The source

Work
Essais (The Essays), Book I, Chapter 31
Essay
“That a Man Is Soberly to Judge of the Divine Ordinances” (some translations number it Ch. 32)
Written & published
Written c. 1571–80; first published 1580
Translation
Charles Cotton (1686), rev. W. Hazlitt

Plato… says that it is much more easy to satisfy the hearers, when speaking of the nature of the gods than of the nature of men, because the ignorance of the auditory affords a fair and large career and all manner of liberty in the handling of abstruse things. Thence it comes to pass, that nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know… Essais, Book I, Ch. 31

Charles Cotton’s translation. Original French: “il n’est rien creu si fermement, que ce qu’on sçait le moins.”

Read the full essay (Cotton translation) at Quotidiana

How we traced it

  • The Wikiquote sourced section lists it under ‘Essais’ Book I, Ch. 31 “Of Divine Ordinances,” giving the French “il n’est rien creu si fermement que ce qu’on sçait le moins” (tr. Cotton, rev. Hazlitt).
  • The full Cotton translation contains the line verbatim: “nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know.”
  • WIST Quotations traces the sentence to the 1580 first edition and collates renderings by Florio (1603), Cotton (1686), Frame (1943) and others — confirming the wording varies by translator.
Public domain

The underlying work — Montaigne’s ‘Essais’, first published 1580 — is long in the public domain, as is Charles Cotton’s English translation (1686) and W. Hazlitt’s 19th-century revision. The popular wording follows this pre-1931 Cotton lineage, so it is public domain. (Note: Donald Frame’s 1943 rendering, “what is least known,” would still be in copyright, but that is not the wording in circulation.)

This reflects the original work, which is public domain. If your exact English wording comes from a specific modern translation, that translation may itself still be under copyright — check the edition you quote.

Fact-check

A note on the wording

The attribution is not in dispute — this really is Montaigne. What varies is the exact English, because it is a translation of a 16th-century French sentence.

“that which we least know” vs. “what we least know” variant

The most-shared form (“that which we least know”) lightly reworks Charles Cotton’s actual phrasing, “nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know” — see the full text. Both are faithful to the French “ce qu’on sçait le moins.”

“what is least known” variant

Donald Frame’s modern (1943) translation renders it “Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known,” per WIST’s collation — a different, still-copyrighted phrasing than the public-domain Cotton line the internet quotes.

Same author, same sentence: Montaigne wrote it in the ‘Essais’ (1580); the English simply differs by translator — the circulating version tracks Cotton’s public-domain rendering.

Context

Why it resonates

Montaigne places the line at the end of an essay warning against confidently judging God’s designs. His point is diagnostic, not merely cynical: the less evidence we have, the fewer facts there are to check our conviction against — so belief inflates to fill the vacuum. Certainty, he suggests, tends to be strongest exactly where knowledge is thinnest.

It reads as a Renaissance anticipation of a very modern idea — that confidence and competence can run in opposite directions — which is why it circulates today far from its original theological setting.

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

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More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Truth Doubt

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquote — Montaigne (sourced)en.wikiquote.org

Sourced entry citing Book I ch. 31, the French original, and the Cotton/Hazlitt translation.
Quotidiana — full essay (Cotton)essays.quotidiana.org

Complete Cotton translation of the essay, containing the line in context.
WIST — translation collationwist.info

Side-by-side renderings (Florio, Cotton, Frame, Screech) with 1580 first-edition sourcing.
HyperEssays — the essay in English & Frenchhyperessays.net

Modern bilingual edition of the same essay for cross-checking the original French.
Project Gutenberg — Essays of Montaignegutenberg.org

Public-domain Cotton/Hazlitt text of the complete Essays.

About the author

Michel de Montaigne

Michel de Montaigne

1533–1592 · French Renaissance philosopher & inventor of the personal essay

Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) was a French Renaissance thinker who effectively invented the personal essay with his ‘Essais’ (1580–95), a sprawling, self-questioning inquiry into how little we truly know. Skepticism is his signature move — his motto was “Que sais-je?” (“What do I know?”) — which is exactly why this line about believing most firmly what we understand least is so characteristically his.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Michel de Montaigne, “That a Man Is Soberly to Judge of the Divine Ordinances,” in ‘Essais’, Book I, ch. 31 (first published 1580), trans. Charles Cotton, rev. W. Hazlitt.

MLA (9th ed.)

Montaigne, Michel de. “That a Man Is Soberly to Judge of the Divine Ordinances.” Essais, translated by Charles Cotton, revised by W. Hazlitt, 1686.

APA (7th ed.)

Montaigne, M. de. (1686). That a man is soberly to judge of the divine ordinances. In Essais (C. Cotton, Trans.; W. Hazlitt, Rev.). (Original work published 1580)

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