Note 20 — VAUVENARGUES.
Reading edition
Napoleon said on some occasion, 'Il faut vouloir vivre et savoir mourir.' M. Littré prefaces the third volume of that heroic monument of learning and industry, his Dictionary of the French Language, by the words: 'He who wishes to employ his life seriously ought always to act as if he had long to live, and to govern himself as if he would have soon to die.'