Michel de Montaigne

"It is good to mix pleasure with study, and only as much severity as is conducive to progress."

"That man is happiest who neither craves nor dreads the future."

"We should not give any value to external things, comparing our wealth by what we have, but by what we are willing to lose."

"Obstinacy and heat in argument is a sure sign of stupidity."

"The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere is to be nowhere."

"The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them."

"If you do not know how to die, do not worry; Nature will instruct you at the moment."

"We should prepare for death before we are in want of preparation."

"Marry someone who respects you and whom you respect; all else is illusion."

"A friend is not found, but built through the investment of time and shared vulnerability."

"The unexamined life is no life at all."

"All things are mortal but truth."

"The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts."

"There is nothing so beautiful as to see a soul being kind."

"If we must have enemies, let us strive to be worthy of them."

"What we fear most is ourselves."

"It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness."

"The only knowledge worthy of a man is knowledge of human nature."

"The gift of imagination is more important than the gift of knowledge."

"A man's own observation, what he finds good and true in his daily experience, is the highest authority."

"We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction."

"The world is a perpetual movement; all things in it are in constant mutation."

"Fortune has its place in the order of things; it is not all chance."

"To practice philosophy is to learn how to die."

"He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears."

"There is never a passion without struggle."

"The profit of a man is nothing but his character."

"A wise man never loses anything if he has himself."

"The value of a life is measured not in its duration but in its donation."

"Nature has set the term of man's life so narrow that if he studies how to live well, what leisure remains for studying how to die?"