I had rather fashion my soul than furnish it.
 Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (1580). copy citation

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Author Michel de Montaigne
Source The Essays of Michel de Montaigne
Topic shallowness depth soul
Date 1580
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by Charles Cotton
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm

Context

“It has of its own wherewith to rouse its faculties: nature has given to it, as to all others, matter enough of its own to make advantage of, and subjects proper enough where it may either invent or judge.
Meditation is a powerful and full study to such as can effectually taste and employ themselves; I had rather fashion my soul than furnish it. There is no employment, either more weak or more strong, than that of entertaining a man's own thoughts, according as the soul is; the greatest men make it their whole business,
«Quibus vivere est cogitare;» [«To whom to live is to think.»” source
Original quote

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