“I had rather fashion my mind than furnish it.”

“The finest souls are those that have the most variety and suppleness.”

“The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make to them; a man may live long, yet get little from life. Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will - Montaigne, Essays”

“When I express my opinions it is so as to reveal the measure of my sight not the measure of the thing.”

“Kings and philosophers defecate, and so do ladies.”

“Behold the hands, how they promise, conjure, appeal, menace, pray, supplicate, refuse, beckon, interrogate, admire, confess, cringe, instruct, command, mock and what not besides, with a variation and multiplication of variation which makes the tongue envious.”

“Don't discuss yourself, for you are bound to lose; if you belittle yourself, you are believed; if you praise yourself, you are disbelieved.”

“Judgement can do without knowledge: but not knowledge without judgement.”

“So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination... And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation.”

“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.”

“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.”

“Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own.”

“Valor is strength, not of legs and arms, but of heart and soul; it consists not in the worth of our horse or our weapons, but in our own.”

“Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.”

“Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them.”

“I enjoy books as misers enjoy treasures, because I know I can enjoy them whenever I please.”

“The thing I fear most is fear.”

“I want us to be doing things, prolonging life's duties as much as we can. I want death to find me planting my cabbages, neither worrying about it nor the unfinished gardening.”

“It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance.”

“We trouble our life by thoughts about death, and our death by thoughts about life.”

“Saying is one thing and doing is another”

“If ordinary people complain that I speak too much of myself, I complain that they do not even think of themselves.”

“Other people do not see you at all, but guess at you by uncertain conjectures.”

“Kings and philosophers shit—and so do ladies.”