"The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will."
"I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided if greater pains be the consequence, and pains to be coveted that will terminate in greater pleasures."
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Source: Michel de Montaigne, James Hain Friswell (1866). “Essays by Montaigne. [A selection.] Edited, compared, revised, and annotated by the Author of “The Gentle Life” [J. H. Friswell].”, p.318
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"Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul."
"The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself."
"We must learn to endure what we cannot avoid. Our life is composed, like the harmony of the world, of contrary things, also of different tones, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, soft and loud. If a musician liked only one kind, what would he have to say?"
"A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears."
"My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened."