Life Is Short, But If You Fill It With The Things You Love It Won't Feel That Way

Devon Janse van Rensburg

Life Is Short, But If You Fill It With The Things You Love It Won't Feel That Way

Its time to stop wasting time.

Learning how to live takes a whole life, and, which may surprise you more, it takes a whole life to learn how to die.

— Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca Life Is Short On The Shortness Of Life Philosophy Time

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Believe me, it is the sign of a great man, and one who is above human error, not to allow his time to be frittered away: he has the longest possible life simply because whatever time was available he devoted entirely to himself.

— Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca Life Is Short On The Shortness Of Life Philosophy Time

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People are delighted to accept pensions and gratuities, for which they hire out their labour or their support or their services. But nobody works out the value of time: men use it lavishly as if it cost nothing. But if death threatens these same people, you will see them praying to their doctors; if they are in fear of capital punishment, you will see them prepared to spend their all to stay alive.

— Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca Life Is Short On The Shortness Of Life Philosophy Time

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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.

— Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca Life Is Short On The Shortness Of Life Philosophy Time

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

— Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca Life Is Short On The Shortness Of Life Philosophy Time

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And so there is no reason for you to think that any man has lived long because he has grey hairs or wrinkles, he has not lived long – he has existed long.

— Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca Life Is Short On The Shortness Of Life Philosophy Time

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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.

— Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca Life Is Short On The Shortness Of Life Philosophy Time

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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.

— Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca Life Is Short On The Shortness Of Life Philosophy Time

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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? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.

— Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca Life Is Short On The Shortness Of Life Philosophy Time

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You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.

— Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca Life Is Short On The Shortness Of Life Philosophy Time

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Life is long, if you know how to use it.

— Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca Life Is Short On The Shortness Of Life Philosophy Time

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You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.

— Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca Life Is Short On The Shortness Of Life Philosophy Time

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It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. ... The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.

— Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life

Seneca Life Is Short On The Shortness Of Life Philosophy Time

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