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On the Shortness of Life: De Brevitate Vitae (A New Translation) (Stoics In Their Own Words Book 4)

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On the Shortness of Life: De Brevitate Vitae (A New Translation) (Stoics In Their Own Words Book 4)

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The problem, Paulinus, is not that we have a short life, but that we waste time.

Life is long and there is enough of it for satisfying personal accomplishments if we use our hours well.

Thus the time we are given is not brief, but we make it so. We do not lack time; on the contrary, there is so much of it that we waste an awful lot.

Those who choose to have no real purpose in life are ever rootless and dissatisfied, tossed by their aimlessness into ever-changing situations.

How can anyone complain that no one will give them time when they allot no time for themselves?

In protecting their wealth men are tight-fisted, but when it comes to the matter of time, in the case of the one thing in which it is wise to be parsimonious, they are actually generous to a fault.

You live as if you will live forever, no care for your mortality ever enters your head, you pay no mind to how much time has already gone by.

The time you have, the experience of which is relative, although of course it feels like it is rushing away, by definition escapes from you quickly; because you don’t grab it firmly enough, you neither hold back nor cause to delay the fastest moving thing in the world. You let it slip away as if it were something unimportant that could easily be replaced.

The busy man is busy with everything except living; there is nothing that is more difficult to learn how to do right.

It takes all of our life to learn how to live, and – something that may surprise you more – it takes just as long to learn how to die.

Trust me, it takes an extraordinary person and one who has risen high above human frailties not to allow any of his time to be stolen from him, and it follows that the life of such a man is very long because he has given so much of his own time to himself.

Count, I say, and review the days of your life; you will see that very few have been devoted to yourself.

We all rush through life torn between a desire for the future and a weariness of the present. But he who devotes his time to his own needs, who plans out every day as if it were his last, neither longs for nor fears for tomorrow.

A grey-haired wrinkled man has not necessarily lived long. More accurately, he has existed long.

The greatest obstacle to living a full life is having expectations, delaying gratification based on what might happen tomorrow which squanders today.

Life is divided into three parts: what was, what is and what shall be. Of these three periods, the present is short, the future is doubtful and the past alone is certain. Only over the last one has fate lost control; only the past can not be determined by any man.

A clear conscience gives the tranquil mind power to explore all the parts of its existence; but the mind that is preoccupied, as if burdened by a yoke, cannot turn and look back.

The only really leisured people are those who devote time to acquiring true knowledge rather than trivia.

Unless we are complete ingrates, the lives of all those men that preceded us should be seen as sacred. Their collective existence paved the way for our own time on Earth.

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Because of the efforts of our ancestors we have moved further from darkness into light. We are free to spend time in any era, to roam beyond the narrow confines of the mind, beyond the limits of human capability to explore the vast ocean of time stretched before us.

The Philosopher alone is unfettered by the confines of humanity. He lives forever, like a god. He embraces memory, utilizes the present and anticipates with relish what is to come. He makes his time on Earth longer by merging past, present and future into one.

They waste the day in anticipation of the night, then spend the night worrying about the coming dawn.

A pleasure that is ephemeral brings no true satisfaction to any man. How miserable must be the lives of those folk who labor so hard for something that once gained they must work even harder to keep.

Happy or unhappy, people will always worry. Toil never ebbs; we pray for leisure but true leisure never comes.

Often it is better to hide an illness from the patient, because just the mere awareness of a disease can bring about death.

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