To accomplish great things we must live as though we had never to die.

[Pour exécuter de grandes choses, il faut vivre comme si on ne devait jamais mourir.]

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier

Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]

Alt. trans.:

• "In order to carry out great enterprises, one must live as if one will never have to die."
• "In order to achieve great things, we must live as though we were never going to die."