That to Philosophize Is to Learn to Die — Michel de Montaigne

Cicero says that to study philosophy is nothing but to prepare oneself to die. The reason is that study and contemplation draw our soul somewhat outside of ourselves, and keep it busy apart from the body — a kind of apprenticeship and resemblance of death. All the wisdom and reasoning in the world comes down at last to this: to teach us not to be afraid to die. Let us deprive death of its strangeness; let us frequent it, let us grow used to it. Let us have nothing so often in mind as death. We do not know where death awaits us; so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.