On the Shortness of Life

it takes a whole life to learn how to die.

Life is divided into three periods, past, present and future. Of these, the present is short, the future is doubtful, the past is certain.

nevertheless it wins our attention by reason of the attractiveness of an empty subject.

life, if you know how to use it, is long.

our life is amply long for him who orders it properly.

life we receive is not short, but we make it so,

sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested.

not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it.

nevertheless it wins our attention by reason of the attractiveness of an empty subject.

Old age surprises them while their minds are still childish, and they come to it unprepared and unarmed, for they have made no provision for it;