Fear

Not by Length

“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.” (Montaigne, I:20, 67, Frame)

The Thing I Fear Most

“Those who have been well drubbed in some battle, and who are still all wounded and bloody — you can perfectly well bring them back to the charge the next day. But those who have conceived a healthy fear of the enemy — you would never get them to look him in the face. Those who are in pressing fear of losing their property, of being exiled, of being subjugated, live in constant anguish, losing even the capacity to drink, eat, and rest; whereas the poor, the exiles, and the slaves often live as joyfully as other men. And so many people who, unable to endure the pangs of fear, have hanged themselves, drowned themselves, or leaped to their death, have taught us well that fear is even more unwelcome and unbearable than death itself.” (Montaigne, I:18, 53, Frame)

Idle Fancy

“What an idle fancy it is to expect to die of a decay of powers brought on by extreme old age, and to set ourselves this term for our duration, since that is the rarest of all deaths and the least customary! We call it alone natural, as if it were contrary to nature to see a man break his neck by a fall, be drowned in a shipwreck, or be snatched away by the plague or a pleurisy, and as if our ordinary condition did not expose us to all these mishaps.” (I:57, 236, Frame)

No More Pretending

“In everything else there may be sham: the fine reasonings of philosophy may be a mere pose in us; or else our trials, by not testing us to the quick, give us a chance to keep our face always composed. But in the last scene, between death and ourselves, there is no more pretending; we must talk plain French, we must show what there is that is good and clean at the bottom of the pot…. I leave it to death to test the fruit of my studies. We shall see then whether my reasonings come from my mouth or from my heart.” (I:19, 55, Frame)

“The Thing I Fear Most is Fear”

“Those who have been well drubbed in some battle, and who are still all wounded and bloody—you can perfectly well bring them back to the charge the next day. But those who have conceived a healthy fear of the enemy—you would never get them to look him in the face. Those who are in pressing gear of losing their property, of being exiled, of being subjugated, live in constant anguish, losing even the capacity to drink, eat, and res; whereas the poor, the exiles, and the slaves often live as joyfully as other men.” (I:18, 53, Frame) Cf. James, “On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake.”