The Book of Montaigne 5 · Written in his tower, from his Essays
This man wrote his own book, so nothing here is another man’s record of him. He differs from the rest of this scripture: the others set down what they believed, and he sets down what he is. Where he contradicts himself he did not strike it out, and neither does this scripture.
5.1I am old. I have the stone, and it hurts.
5.2When it hurts I do not cry out. One may cry out; I have only found that it saves nothing.
5.3I have learned one thing: to negotiate with my body rather than fight it.
5.4I eat what I want, sleep till I wake, and walk without hurrying.
5.5Some call this idleness. I call it not wrestling with something I cannot beat.
5.6I have read a great many books in my life. What I learned at the end mostly did not come out of them.
5.7It came out of myself: I have fallen, been ill, been afraid, and been glad.
5.8I have gone over these one at a time, more closely than I ever went over a page.
5.9The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
5.10Each of us should keep a back shop, wholly free, and set his real freedom there.
5.11Everyone wants to fly out and do something remarkable.
5.12I do not.
5.13The finest lives are the ones that fit the common human pattern: with order, and without miracle.
5.14If you can pass one day well — eat, work, deal with people, sleep — you have brought off the hardest thing there is.