On a Life Well Spent Quotes

“The brief arc of our days,
O Sestius,
prevents us from launching
prolonged hopes.”
― Cicero, On Old Age: Cicero De Senectute

“IT is alledged, that Memory fails in Old Age. That it does so, I freely grant; but then it is principally, where it has not been properly exercised; or with those who naturally have no Strength of Brain: For such as have, will pretty well retain it.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, On a Life Well Spent: Cicero's De Senectute with preface by Benjamin Franklin

“The best Armour of Old Age is a well-spent life preceding it; a Life employed in the Pursuit of useful Knowledge, in honourable Actions and the Practice of Virtue; in which he who labours to improve himself from his Youth, will in Age reap the happinest Fruits of them; not only because these never leave a Man, not even in the extremest Old Age; but because a Conscience bearing Witness that our Life was well-spent, together with the Remembrance of past good Actions, yields an unspeakable Comfort to the Soul”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Cicero De Senectute, On Old Age