On the Shortness of Life

In short, run through the list of all these men from the lowest to the highest — this man desires an advocate, this one answers the call, that one is on trial, that one defends him, that one gives sentence; no one asserts his claim to himself, everyone is wasted for the sake of another.

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

many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant and dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new;

In guarding their fortune men are often close-fisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most prodigal.

Vices beset us and surround us on every side, and they do not permit us to rise anew and lift up our eyes for the discernment of truth, but they keep us down when once they have overwhelmed us and we are chained to lust.

Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested.

"The part of life we really live is small."

What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained!

the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it.