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On the Shortness of Life

Seneca
49

A Stoic meditation on time, mortality, and the urgency of living deliberately.

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Quotes from this source

9 verified quotes

“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested.”
“So it is we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it.”
“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future.”
“The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today.”
“Live immediately.”
“What can happen to one man can happen to all.”
“It is a small part of life we really live. Indeed, all the rest is not life but merely time.”
“He who fears death will never do anything worthy of a living man.”
“Believe me, it is the sign of a great man, and one who is above human error, not to allow his time to be frittered away he has the longest possible life simply because whatever time was available he devoted entirely to himself.”