On reading "On The Shortness Of Life" by Seneca (translated by John W Basore) left me wondering and reflected on importance of time. Time which we always rate highly and let it go lightly.
My learning from the "On The Shortness Of Life" is listed:
Chapter 1
"life is short, art is long;"
“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much
of it.”
Chapter 2
"The part of life we really live is small."
Chapter 3
“Men do not suffer anyone to seize their estates, and they rush to
stones and arms if there is even the slightest dispute about the limit of their
lands, yet they allow others to trespass upon their life—“
"I see that you have reached the farthest limit of human life, you
are pressing hard upon your hundredth year, or are even beyond it; come now,
recall your life and make a reckoning. Consider how much of your time was taken
up with a moneylender, how much with a mistress, how much with a patron, how
much with a client, how much in wrangling with your wife, how much in punishing
your slaves, how much in rushing about the city on social duties. Add the
diseases which we have caused by our own acts, add, too, the time that has lain
idle and unused; you will see that you have fewer years to your credit than you
count. Look back in memory and consider when you ever had a fixed plan, how few
days have passed as you had intended, when you were ever at your own disposal,
when your face ever wore its natural expression, when your mind was ever
unperturbed, what work you have achieved in so long a life, how many have
robbed you of life when you were not aware of what you were losing, how much
was taken up in useless sorrow, in foolish joy, in greedy desire, in the
allurements of society, how little of yourself was left to you; you will
perceive that you are dying before your season!"
“You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals.”
Chapter 4
“You will see that the most powerful and highly placed men let drop
remarks in which they long for leisure, acclaim it, and prefer it to all their
blessings.”
Chapter 7
“And so there is no reason for you to think that any man has lived long
because he has grey hairs or wrinkles; he has not lived long—he has existed
long. For what if you should think that that man had had a long voyage who had
been caught by a fierce storm as soon as he left harbour, and, swept hither and
thither by a succession of winds that raged from different quarters, had been
driven in a circle around the same course? Not much voyaging did he have, but
much tossing about.”
Chapter 9
“The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy.”
Chapter 10
“The present offers only one day at a time, and each by minutes; but
all the days of past time will appear when you bid them, they will suffer you
to behold them and keep them at your will—a thing which those who are engrossed
have no time to do. The mind that is untroubled and tranquil has the power to
roam into all the parts of its life; but the minds of the engrossed, just as if
weighted by a yoke, cannot turn and look behind. And so their life vanishes
into an abyss; and as it does no good, no matter how much water you pour into a
vessel, if there is no bottom to receive and hold it, so with
time—it makes no difference how much is given; if there is nothing for it to
settle upon, it passes out through the chinks and holes of the mind. Present
time is very brief, so brief, indeed, that to some there seems to be none; for
it is always in motion, it ever flows and hurries on; it ceases to be before it
has come, and can no more brook delay than the firmament or the stars, whose
ever unresting movement never lets them abide in the same track. The engrossed,
therefore, are concerned with present time alone, and it is so brief that it
cannot be grasped, and even this is filched away from them, distracted as they
are among many things.”
Chapter 11
“In a word, do you want to know how they do not "live long"?
See how eager they are to live long! Decrepit old men beg in their prayers for
the addition of a few more years; they pretend that they are younger than they
are; they comfort themselves with a falsehood, and are as pleased to deceive
themselves as if they deceived Fate at the same time. But when at last some
infirmity has reminded them of their mortality, in what terror do they die,
feeling that they are being dragged out of life, and not merely leaving it.
They cry out that they have been fools, because they have not really lived, and
that they will live henceforth in leisure if only they escape from this
illness; then at last they reflect how uselessly they have striven for things
which they did not enjoy, and how all their toil has gone for nothing. But for
those whose life is passed remote from all business, why should it not be
ample? None of it is assigned to another, none of it is scattered in this
direction and that, none of it is committed to Fortune, none of it perishes
from neglect, none is subtracted by wasteful giving, none of it is unused; the
whole of it, so to speak, yields income. And so, however small the amount of
it, it is abundantly sufficient, and therefore, whenever his last day shall
come, the wise man will not hesitate to go to meet death with steady step.”
Chapter 16
“But those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear for the
future have a life that is very brief and troubled; when they have reached the
end of it, the poor wretches perceive too late that for such a long while they
have been busied in doing nothing.”
Chapter 17
“For everything that comes to us from chance is unstable, and the
higher it rises, the more liable it is to fall.”
Chapter 20
“And
so when you see a man often wearing the robe of office, when you see one whose
name is famous in the Forum, do not envy him; those things are bought at the
price of life.”
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