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.

it takes a great man and one who has risen far above human weaknesses not to allow any of his time to be stolen from him, and it follows that the life of such a man is very long because he has devoted wholly to himself whatever time he has had.

So part of what makes a man a great man--it would seem--is that he is the one in control of his time. That is what makes him both free and great, that he lets no one else control how he spends his life?

All things that are still to come lie in uncertainty; live straight away!

Seize the day! Carpe Diem! How often do I think that things will work themselves out in time? I must work it out now!