Whenever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by… — Michel de Montaigne
Whenever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough.
In the original French
Où que vostre vie finisse, elle y est toute. L'utilité du vivre n'est pas en l'espace, elle est en l'usage: tel a vescu long temps, qui a peu vescu: attendez vous y pendant que vous y estes. Il gist en vostre volonté, non au nombre des ans, que vous ayez assez vescu
Essays · 1580
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Current citation
De Montaigne, Michel. "To Philosophize is to Learn How to Die." The Complete Essays, edited and translated by M. A. Screech. Penguin Classics, 1993.
Original citation
De Montaigne, Michel. "Que Philosopher C'Est Apprendre a Mourir [That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die]." Essais [Essays]. Paris: Simon Millanges and Jean Richer, 1580.