On the Shortness of Life: Adapted for the Contemporary Reader

by James Harris

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

No one can complain about the pride of another when he himself has no time to attend to himself.

even the most powerful and highly placed men drop remarks that they long for leisure, praise it, and prefer it to all their blessings.

the mind, when its interests are divided, takes in nothing very deeply,

All those who summon you for themselves, turn you away from your own self.

The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon tomorrow and wastes the present.

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. The engrossed, therefore, are concerned with present time alone, and it is so brief that it cannot be grasped, and even this is taken away from them, distracted as they are among many things.

Would you say that these are at leisure who are occupied with the comb and the mirror?

Of all men they alone are at leisure who take time for philosophy, they alone really live; for they are not content to be good guardians of their own lifetime only.

the works which philosophy that have been created to promote morals cannot be harmed; no age will destroy them, no age reduce them; the following and each succeeding age will but increase the reverence for them, since envy works upon what is close at hand, the things that are far off we are more free to admire.

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 unhappy perceive too late that for such a long while they have been occupied in doing nothing.