“As far as I am concerned, I know that I have lost not wealth but distractions. The body’s needs are few: it wants to be free from cold, to banish hunger and thirst with nourishment; if we long for anything more we are exerting ourselves to serve our vices, not our needs.”
― On the Shortness of Life
― On the Shortness of Life
“But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.”
― On the Shortness of Life
― On the Shortness of Life
“Can anything be more idiotic than certain people who boast of their foresight? They keep themselves officiously preoccupied in order to improve their lives; they spend their lives in organizing their lives. They direct their purposes with an eye to a distant future. But putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining?”
― On the Shortness of Life
― On the Shortness of Life
“So you must match time’s swiftness with your speed in using it, and you must drink quickly as though from a rapid stream that will not always flow.”
― On the Shortness of Life
― On the Shortness of Life
“People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”
― On the Shortness of Life
― On the Shortness of Life
Jake’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Jake’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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