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On the Shortness of Life: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader QUOTES

On the Shortness of Life: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader QUOTES

1 " all men they alone are at leisure who take time for philosophy, they alone really live; for they are not content to be good guardians of their own lifetime only. They take from every age to add to their own; all the years that have gone before them are an addition to their store. Unless we are most ungrateful, all those men, glorious tailors of holy thoughts, were born for us; for us they have prepared a way of life. By other men's labours we are led to the sight of things most beautiful that have been wrestled from darkness and brought into light; from no age are we shut out, we have access to all ages, and if it is our wish, by greatness of mind, to pass beyond the narrow limits of human weakness, there is a great stretch of time through which we may roam. We may argue with Socrates, we may doubt with Carneades, find peace with Epicurus, overcome human nature with the Stoics, exceed it with the Cynics. Since Nature allows us to enter into fellowship with every age, why should we not turn from this small and fleeting span of time and surrender ourselves with all our soul to the past, which is boundless, which "

― , On the Shortness of Life: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader

2 " he who has ambitiously yearned to possess, proudly scorned, recklessly conquered, treacherously betrayed, greedily seized, or lavishly squandered, must fear his own memory. "

― , On the Shortness of Life: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader

3 " The part of life we really live is small”. All the rest of existence is not life, but merely time. "

― Seneca , On the Shortness of Life: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader

4 " Men treat with little respect the most precious thing in the world; but they are blind to it because it is not physical, because it does not come to the sight of the eyes, and for this reason it is counted as a very cheap thing—or of almost no value at all. "

― , On the Shortness of Life: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader

5 " There is nothing the busy man is less occupied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn. "

― , On the Shortness of Life: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader

6 " The condition of all who are engrossed is poor, but poorest is the condition of those who labour at engrossments that are not even their own, who regulate their sleep by that of another, their walk by the pace of another, who are under orders—loving and hating. "

― , On the Shortness of Life: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader