Michel de Montaigne

“ The most and the least is ours, if we compare it with eternitie, or equall it to the lasting of mountains, rivers, stars, and trees, or any other living creature, is not lesse ridiculous. But nature compels us to it. Depart (saith she) out of this world, even as you came into it. The same way you came from death to life, returne without passion or amazement, from life to death: your death is but a peece of the worlds order, and but a parcell of the worlds life. ”

“ The enterprise is perceived by the qualitie of the thing, which it hath regard unto: for it is a good portion of the effect, and consubstantiall. That happines and felicitie which shineth in vertue, replenishet her approaches and appurtenances, even unto the first entrance and utmost barre. Now of all the benefits of vertue, the contempt of the contempt of death is the chiefest, a meane that furnisheth our life with an ease-full tranquillitie and gives us a pure and amiable taste of it: without which every other voluptuousnes is extinguished. ”

“ A dotard I had rather seeme, and dull, Sooner my faults may please make me a gull, Than to be wise, and beat my vexed scull. But it is folly to thinke that way to come unto it. They come, they goe, they trot, they daunce: but no speech of death. All that is good sport. But if she be once come, and on a sudden openly surprise, either them, their wives, their children, or their friends', what torments, what out-cries, what rage, and what despaire doth then overwhelme them? saw you ever anything so drooping, so changed, and so distracted? A man must looke to it, and in better times fore-see it. ”

“ As our birth brought us the birth of all things, so shall our death the end of all things. Therefore is it as great follie to weepe, we shall not live a hundred yeeres hence, as to waile we lived not a hundred yeeres agoe. 'Death is the beginning of an other life.' So wept we, and so much did it cost us to enter into this life; and so did we spoil us of our ancient vaile in entring into it. Nothing can be grievous that is but once. Is it reason so long to fear a thing of so short time? Long life or short life is made all one by death. For long or short is not ill things that are no more. ”

“ And even as the ægyptians after their feastings and carousings caused a great image of death to be brought in and shewed to the guests and by-standers, by one that cried aloud, 'Drinke and be merry, for such shalt thou be when thou art dead:' So have I learned this custome or lesson, to have alwaies death, not only in my imagination, but continually in my mouth. And there is nothing I desire more to be informed of than of the death of men; that is to say what words, what countenance, and what face they shew at their death ”

“ The jollitie wherein I live, the pleasure and the strength make the other seeme so disproportionable from that, that by imagination I amplifie these commodities by one moitie, and apprehended them much more heavie and burthensome, than I feele them when I have them upon my shoulders. The same I hope will happen to me of death. Consider we by the ordinary mutations and daily declinations which we suffer, how Nature deprives us of the sight of our losse and impairing: what hath an aged man left him of his youths vigour; and of his forepast life? ”

“ The very children are afraid of their friends, when they see them masked; and so are we. The maske must as well be taken from things as from men, which being removed, we shall find nothing hid under it, but the very same death, that a seely varlet, or a simple maid-servant, did latterly suffer without amazement or feare. Happie is that death which takes all leasure from the preparations of such an equipage. ”

“ All the time you live, you steale it from death: it is at her charge. The continuall worke of your life, is to contrive death: you are in death, during the time you continue in life: for, you are after death, when you are no longer living. Or if you had rather have it so, you are dead after life: but during life, you are still dying: and death doth more rudely touch the dying than the dead, and more lively and essentially. If you have profited by life, you have also beene fed thereby, depart then satisfied. ”

“ Amiddest our bankets, feasts, and pleasures, let us ever have this restraint or object before us, that is, the remembrance of our condition and let not pleasure so much mislead or transport us, that we altogether neglect or forget, how many wayes, our joyes, or our feastings, be subject unto death, and by how many hold-fasts shee threatens.us and them. So did the ægyptians, who in the middest of their banquetings, and in the full of their greatest cheere, caused the anatomie of a dead man to be brought before them, as a memorandum and warning to their guests. ”

“ So that when youth failes in us, we feele, nay we perceive no shaking or transcharge at all in our selves: which in essence and veritie is a harder death, than that of a languishing and irkesome life, or that of age. ”

“ And albeit they all leade us with a common accord to despise grife, povertie, and other accidentall crosses, to which man's life is subject, it is not with an equall care: as well because accidents are not of such a necessitie for most men passe their whole life without feeling any wan t or povertier and othersome without feeling any griefe or sicknes, as Xenophilus the Musitian, who lived an hundred and six yeares in perfect and continuall health: as also if the worst happen, death may at all times, and whensoever it shall please us, cut off all other inconveniences and crosses. ”

“ When dying I my selfe shall spend, Ere halfe my businesse come to end. I would have a man to be doing, and to prolong his lives offices as much as lieth in him, and let death seize upon me whilest I am setting my cabiges, care-lesse of her dart, but more of my unperfect garden. I saw one die, who being at his last gaspe, uncessantly complained against his destinie, and that death should so unkindly cut him off in the middest of an historie which he had in hand, and was now come to the fifteenth or sixteenth of our Kings. ”

“ I finde that I have more adoe to digest this resolution, that I shall die when I am in health, than I have when I am troubled with a fever: forsomuch as I have no more such fast hold on the commodities of life, whereof I begin to lose the use and pleasure, and view death in the face with a lesse undanted looke, which makes me hope, that the further I goe from that, and the nearer I approch to this, so much more easily doe I enter in composition for their exchange. ”

“ Wheresoever your life ended, there is it all. The profit of life consists not in the space, but rather in the use. Some man hath lived long, that hath a short life, Follow it whilst you have time. It consists not in number of yeeres, but in your will, that you have lived long enough. Did you thinke you should never come to the place, where you were still going? There is no way but hath an end. And if company may solace you, doth not the whole world walke the same path?
-- Omnia te, vita perfuncta, sequentur. -- 1012. Life past, all things at last Shall follow thee as thou hast past. ”

“ Thinke every day shines on thee as thy last Welcome it will come, whereof hope was past. It is uncertaine where death looks for us; let us expect her everie where: the premeditation of death, is a fore-thinking of libertie. - He who hath learned to die, hath unlearned to serve. There is no evill in life, for him that hath well conceived, how the privation of life is no evill. To know how to die, doth free us from all subjection and constraint. ”

“ The water, the earth, the aire, the fire, and other members of this my universe, are no more the instruments of thy life than of thy death. Why fearest thou thy last day? he is no more guiltie, and conferreth no more to thy deith, than any of the others. It is not the last step that causeth weariness: it only declares it. All daies march towards death, only the last comes to it.' Behold heere the good precepts of our universall mother Nature. ”

“ I told him (and indeed it was true) , that being but a mile from my house, and in perfect health and lustie, I had made haste to write it, because I could not assure my self I should ever come home in safety: As one that am ever hatching of mine owne thoughts, and place them in my selfe: I am ever prepared about that which I may be: nor can death come when she please) put me in mind of any new thing. A man should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey, and above all things , looke he have then nothing to doe but with himselfe. ”

“ Being amongst faire Ladies, and in earnest play, some have thought me busied, or musing with my selfe, how to digest some jealousie, or meditating on the uncertaintie of some conceived hope, when God he knowes, I was entertaining my self with the remembrance of some one or other, that but few daies before was taken with a burning fever, and of his sodaine end, coming from such a feast or meeting where I was my selfe, and with his head full of idle conceits, of love, and merry glee ”

“ Why seeke you more to gaine, what must againe, All perish ill, and passe with griefe or paine? Life in itselfe is neither good nor evill; it is the place of good or evill, according as you prepare it for them. And if you have lived one day, you have seene all: one day is equal to all other daies. There is no other light, there is no other night. ”

“ Truly either reason mockes us, or it only aimeth at our contentment, and in fine, bends all her travell to make us live well, and as the holy Scripture, saith, 'at our ease.' All the opinions of the world conclude, that pleasure is our end, howbeit they take divers meanes unto and for it, else would men reject them at their first comming. ”

“ Doe not all things move as you doe, or keepe your course? Is there any thing grows not old together with yourselfe? A thousand men, a thousand beasts, and a thousand other creatures die in the very instant that you die. ”

“ Else nothing, that I can devise or frame, Can please thee, for all things are still the same. Make roome for others, as others have done for you. Equalitie is the chiefe ground-worke of equitie, who can comp laine to be comprehended where all are contained? So may you live long enough, you shall never diminish anything from the time you have to die: it is bootlesse: so long shall you continue in that state which you feare, as if you had died being in your swathing-clothes, and when you were sucking. ”

“ Even as I have tried in many other occurrences, which Cæsar affirmed, that often some things seeme greater, being farre from us, than if they bee neere at hand: I have found that being in perfect health, I have much more beene frighted with sicknesse, than when I have felt it. ”

“ And being to take the greatest advantage she hath upon us from her, let us take a cleane contrary way from the common, let us remove her strangenesse from her, let us conve rse, frequent, and acquaint our selves with her, let us have nothing so much in minde as death, let us at all times and seasons, and in the ugliest manner that may be, yea with all faces shapen and represent the same unto our imagination. At the stumbling of a horse, at the fall of a stone, at the least prick with a pinne, let us presently ruminate and say with our selves, what if it were death it selfe? ”

“ You have seene many who have found good in death, ending thereby many many miseries. But have you seene any that hath received hurt thereby? Therefore it is meere simplicitie to condemne a thing you never approve, neither by yourselfe nor any other. ”

“ For as it is impossible she should take any rest whilest she feareth: whereof if she be assured (which is a thing exceeding humane condition) she may boast that it is impossible unquietnesse, torment, and feare, much lesse the least displeasure should lodge in her. ”

“ It may haply be, as the common saying is, the time we live is worth the money we pay for it. I was borne betweene eleven of the clocke and noone, the last of Februarie 1 533, according to our computation, the yeare beginning the first of Januarie. It is but a fortnight since I was 39 yeares old. I want at least as much more. If in the meane time I should trouble my thoughts with a matter so farre from me, it were but folly. But what? we see both young and old to leave their life after one selfe-same condition. ”

“ For then none for himselfe himselfe or life requires: Nor are we of our selves affected with desires. Death is lesse to be feared than nothing, if there were anything lesse than nothing.
-- multo mortem minus ad nos esse putandum, Si minus esse potest quam quod nihil esse videmus. -- 970. Death is much less to us, we ought esteeme, If lesse may be, than what doth nothing seeme. Nor alive, nor dead, it doth concern you nothing. Alive because you are: Dead, because you are no more. Moreover, no man dies before his houre. ”

“ A man can never take good heed, Hourely what he may shun and speed. I omit to speak of agues and pleurisies; who would ever have imagined that a Duke of Brittanie should have beene stifled to death in a throng of people, as whilome was a neighbour of mine at Lyons, when Pope Clement made his entrance there? ”

“ Nature her selfe lends her hand, and gives us courage. If it be a short and violent death, wee have no leisure to feare it; if otherwise, I perceive that according as I engage my selfe in Sicknesse, I doe naturally fall into some disdaine and contempt of life. ”