" He did not want to live. As the condition of life does, so the condition of death should depend on one’s choice. The wise man lives as long as he ought, not as long as he can. Democrites fell on his sword; Aruntius killed himself to fly both the past and the future; Crates said that love would be cured by hunger, if not by time; and whoever disliked these two remedies, by a rope. "

― Dorothy Dunnett , Checkmate (The Lymond Chronicles, #6)