Comfort and poverty depend on the opinions we have of them; and riches, glory, and health have only as much beauty and pleasure as is attributed to them by their possessor. Each of us is as well or badly off as we believe. The happy are those who think they are, not those who are thought to be so by others; and in this way alone, belief makes itself real and true. Montaigne, That the Taste of Good and Evil Things Depends in Large Part on the Opinion We Have of Them (1580)
