We are great fools. "He has passed his life in idleness," we say. "I have done nothing today." What! Haven't you lived? That is not only the fundamental but the most illustrious of your occupations. "Had I been put in a position to manage great affairs, I would have shown you what I could do." Have you been able to think out and manage your life? You have performed the greatest work of all. In order to show and release her powers, Nature has no need of fortune; she shows herself equally on all levels, and behind a curtain as well as without one. To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, to rule, to lay up treasure, to build, are at most but little appendices and props.
- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592)
Need I add anything to that...?! Maybe just this (written by the same dude):
It is an absolute perfection, and as it were divine, for a man to know how to rightfully enjoy his being. We seek other conditions because we don't understand the use of our own, and go out of ourselves because we don't know what it is like within. Yet it is no use for us to mount on stilts, for on stilts we must still walk with our own legs. And upon the loftiest throne in the world we are still sitting on our own ass.
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