paraphrased them in such a way as to resolve them into eight separate commandments—which could also be called the eight freedoms: Be free from vanity and pride. Be free from belief, disbelief, convictions, and parties. Be free from habit. Be free from ambition and greed. Be free from family and surroundings. Be free from fanaticism. Be free from fate; be master of your own life. Be free from death; life depends on the will of others, but death on our own will. Zweig was selecting a very Stoic Montaigne, thus returning to a sixteenth-century way of reading him.
