"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 have seen books made of things neither studied nor ever understood ... the author contenting himself for his own part, to have cast the plot and projected the design of it, and by his industry to have bound up the fagot of unknown provisions; at least the ink and paper his own. This may be said to be a buying or borrowing, and not a making or compiling of a book."
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Source: Essays. Book by Michel de Montaigne, Book III, Chapter XII; in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 653-54, 1595.
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