On the shortness of life

by Seneca

Everyone hurries his life on and suffers from a yearning for the future and a weariness of the present.

But he who bestows all of his time on his own needs, who plans out every day as if it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the morrow.

Life will follow the path it started upon, and will neither reverse nor check its course; it will make no noise, it will not remind you of its swiftness. Silent it will glide on; it will not prolong itself at the command of a king, or at the applause of the populace.

Since Nature allows us to enter into fellowship with every age, why should we not turn from this paltry and fleeting span of time and surrender ourselves with all our soul to the past, which is boundless, which is eternal, which we share with our betters?