From a wonderful and beautiful book

Life is hard. Everyone believes the world is ending all the time. But so far, all of them have been wrong.... The truth is infinitely more complicated, that we are all beautiful even as we are all part of the problem, and that to be a part of the problem is to be human.

Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land

 

Montaigne

When when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts are some part of the time taken up with external occurrences, I some part of the time call them back again to my walk, to the orchard, to the sweetness of that solitude, and to myself.... Have you known how to take repose, you have done more than he who has taken empires and cities.... of all the infirmities we have, 'tis the most barbarous to despise our being.... 'Tis an absolute and, as it were, a divine perfection, for a man to know how loyally to enjoy his being. We seek other conditions, by reason we do not understand the use of our own; and go out of ourselves, because we know not how there to reside. 'Tis to much purpose to go upon stilts, for, when upon stilts, we must yet walk with our legs; and when seated upon the most elevated throne in the world, we are but seated upon our breech. The fairest lives, in my opinion, are those which regularly accommodate themselves to the common and human model without miracle, without extravagance. Old age stands a little in need of a more gentle treatment. Let us recommend that to God, the protector of health and wisdom, but let it be gay and sociable.


Montaigne, in his 54th year at the end of his magisterial Essays.   He died at age 59 after suffering some years of kidney stones.

This ends submissions from my reading of the Essays over the last three years.  They can be found here.  

We must not rivet ourselves so fast to our humours and complexions: our chiefest sufficiency is to know how to apply ourselves to divers employments.
 
The principal use of reading to me is, that by various objects it rouses my reason, and employs my judgment, not my memory. 

Montaigne