"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."
"The good, supreme, divine poetry is above the rules and reason. Whoever discerns its beauty with a firm, sedate gaze does not see it, any more than he sees the splendor of a lightning flash. It does not persuade our judgement, it ravishes and overwhelms it."
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Source: Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.171, Stanford University Press
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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."