to use life

from on the shortness of life by seneca

"people are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy."

"how stupid to forget our mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years, aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived!"

"finally, it is generally agreed that no activity can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied - not rhetoric or liberal studies - since the mind when distracted absorbs nothing deeply, but rejects everything which is, so to speak, crammed into it."

"the greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today."

"it used to be a greek failing to want to know how many oarsmen ulysses had, whether the iliad or the odyssey was written first, and whether too they were by the same author, and other questions of this kind, which if you keep them to yourself in no way enhance your private knowledge, and if you publish them make you appear more a bore than a scholar. but now the romans too have been afflicted by the pointless enthusiasm for useless knowledge. recently i heard somebody reporting which roman general first did this or that: duilius first won a naval battle; curius dentatus first included elephants in a triumph. so far these facts, even if they do not contribute to real glory, at least are concerned with exemplary services to the state: such knowledge will not do us any good, but it interests us because of the appeal of these pointless facts."

"even their pleasures are uneasy and made anxious by various fears, and at the very height of their rejoicing the worrying thought steals over them: 'how long will this last?' this feeling has caused kings to bewail their power, and they were not so much delighted by the greatness of their fortune as terrified by the thought of its inevitable end."

"so it is inevitable that life will be not just very short but very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil. they achieve what they want laboriously; they possess what they have achieved anxiously; and meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return. new preoccupations take the place of the old, hope excites more hope and ambition more ambition. they do not look for an end to their misery, but simply change the reason for it."

"there will always be causes for anxiety, whether due to prosperity or to wretchedness. life will be driven on through a succession of preoccupations: we shall always long for leisure, but never enjoy it."

"every great and overpowering grief must take away the capacity to choose words, since it often stifles the voice itself."

"the body's needs are few: it wants to be free from cold, to banish hunger and thirst with nourishment; if we long for anything more we are exerting ourselves to serve our vices, not our needs."

"for to be afflicted with endless sorrow at the loss of someone very dear is foolish self-indulgence, and to feel none is inhuman callousness."

"he will live badly who does not know how to die well."

"inevitably the mind can cope more easily with the distress arising from disappointed longings if you have not promised it certain success."

"there is also another not inconsiderable source of anxieties, if you are too concerned to assume a pose and do not reveal yourself openly to anyone, like many people whose lives are false and aimed only at outward show. for it is agonizing always to be watching yourself in fear of being caught when your usual mask has slipped. nor can we ever be carefree when we think that whenever we are observed we are appraised; for many things happen to strip us of our pretensions against our will, and even if all this attention to oneself succeeds, yet the life of those who always live behind a mask is not pleasant or free from care. on the contrary, how full of pleasure is that honest and naturally unadorned simplicity that in no way hides its disposition! yet this life too runs a risk of being scorned if everything is revealed to everybody; for with some people familiarity breeds contempt. but there is no danger of virtue being held cheap as a result of close observation, and it is better to be despised for simplicity than to suffer agonies from everlasting pretence. still, let us use moderation here: there is a big difference between living simply and living carelessly."