A house that must last a long, long time

French writer and aphorist Michel de Montaigne was born on Feb. 28, 1533.


"The ceaseless labor of a man's whole life," he wrote, "is to build the house of death."

And universities, too

Today is the birthday of Oral Roberts, born in 1918.

"Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens." -- Montaigne.
 
Be prepared for death at all times, Montaigne had said. The writer’s own brother had succumbed to a blow to the side of his head by a tennis ball. How had he put it? Death has us by the scruff of the neck at every moment.  --  Chapter 39, The Misforgotten.

He had to beg for the paper

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther, born in 1483. He died February 18, 1546. His last words (written on a scrap of paper):


"We are beggars, this is true." 

“Luther was the foulest of monsters.” – Pope Gregory XV.

   “Montaigne thought it was healthy to always keep death in mind,” Sully had said. “Do you agree?” He himself was dying a little death of sorts, it seemed to him. The class was yawning, fidgety, silent.

   “This ain’t too good a topic,” Red finally said.
   “So you don’t agree with Montaigne?”
   “I mean this ain’t too good a topic.” He pressed a hand to the back of his neck. “Friend of ours died.”
   Sully had read of the woman who froze to death while sleeping in a Dumpster. Why hadn’t it occurred to him to…
   “I’m sorry,” he said. He closed his book and let it lie in his lap. The truth was, it dawned on him now, that everyone here did indeed keep death in mind at all times, and not as the exotic object of an exercise in philosophy but as the monstrous end to a harried existence.  --  Chapter 39, The Misforgotten.