On the quality, as contrasted with the length, of life
93:3
Book Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Book Description: The final volume of Seneca's moral letters. Common Stoic themes emerge again and again: the unreliability of fortune, the ability to form Stoic resolve, and the importance of virtue.
3.
What benefit does this older man derive from the eighty years he has spent in idleness?
A person like him has not lived; he has merely tarried awhile in life.
Nor has he died late in life; he has simply been a long time dying.
He has lived eighty years, has he?
That depends upon the date from which you reckon his death!
Your other friend, however, departed in the bloom of his manhood.
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On the quality, as contrasted with the length, of life
Location: Chapter 93, Section 3
Content:
3.
What benefit does this older man derive from the eighty years he has spent in idleness?
A person like him has not lived; he has merely tarried awhile in life.
Nor has he died late in life; he has simply been a long time dying.
He has lived eighty years, has he?
That depends upon the date from which you reckon his death!
Your other friend, however, departed in the bloom of his manhood.