Wednesday's Words of Wisdom

Courtesy of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592), one of the French philosophers who sowed the seeds of the Enlightenment:

"The principle effect of the power of custom is to seize

and ensnare us in such a way that it is hardly within
our power to get ourselves back out of its grip and return
unto ourselves to reflect and reason about its
ordinances.... And the common notions that we find in
credit around us and infused in our soul by our fathers'
seed, these seem to be the universal and natural ones.
Whence it comes to pass that what is off the hinges
of custom, people believe to be off the hinges of reason:
God knows how unreasonably, most of the time."