# Anni Ultimi  ## Metadata - Author:: [[Alan Scribner and J. C. Douglas Marshall]] - Full Title:: Anni Ultimi - Category: #books ## Highlights > We found Seneca to be a guide and provocateur for our own process of coming to terms with the final years — in Latin, anni ultimi. ([Location 71](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=71)) > In the United States during the 20th century, approximately 80% of the people born lived until the age of sixty, 20% dying before then. In ancient Rome the numbers were approximately the reverse, with about 20% surviving to age sixty, 80% dying before then. ([Location 75](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=75)) > Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born in Cordoba, Spain around the year 1 BCE,2 during the reign of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. ([Location 104](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=104)) > Gallio became Prefect of Greece where, among other things, he presided over the trial of the Christian Paul of Tarsus in Corinth, as reported in the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. ([Location 110](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=110)) > Ever after he was influenced by the Stoic principles of frugality taught by Attalus and for the rest of his life didn’t eat oysters or mushrooms, didn’t drink wine or take hot baths (only cold or lukewarm ones), didn’t wear perfume, slept on hard pillows and also went swimming every year on January 1 in a cold river. He also practiced daily self-examination and “where I ceased to practice abstinence, I have observed a limit which is very close to abstinence.” ([Location 119](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=119)) > Throughout his life Seneca was plagued by health problems. He was seriously asthmatic, calling his asthma attacks “practicing to die,”10 and may have had catarrh and consumption as well. ([Location 124](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=124)) > the main source of Rome’s wheat. ([Location 138](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=138)) > It took the form of a discussion by the gods concerning the possible deification of Claudius after his death, or, as Seneca termed it, Claudius’ “pumpkinification.” ([Location 229](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=229)) > The first five years of Nero’s reign are noted in Roman history as the quinquennium, some of the best years of imperial rule, according to the later emperor Trajan.34 This was in no small measure due to the influence of Seneca. ([Location 233](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=233)) > It recommends that the ruler should remind himself that “a person who lacks everything except the name ‘human being’ finds favor with me…I am moved by one person’s extreme youth and another’s extreme age. One I have pardoned because of his dignity, another because of his humility. Whenever I have found no cause for mercy, I spared myself the need to find a cause.” ([Location 242](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=242)) > Seneca favored treating slaves as fellow human beings. ([Location 254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=254)) > However, Seneca was often attacked because his words as a philosopher and a Stoic sometimes seemed at odds with his actions as a politician and courtier. Feathering his nest by accumulating enormous wealth hardly appeared to be in accord with his advocacy of Stoic principles of virtue, frugality and the simple life. ([Location 282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=282)) > Though this explanation is convenient, it may also have been that Seneca, in some odd way, was attracted equally to both austerity and extravagance. He seems to have embraced both extremes. ([Location 291](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=291)) > Nero’s reign lasted for another three years, when an army revolt and march on Rome forced him to commit suicide at the age of 31, his last words being “what an artist is being lost.” ([Location 400](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=400)) > The underlying principle of Stoicism, as well as of other Greek philosophic schools, was the achievement of happiness (eudaimonia) by living “according to nature” (kata physin). ([Location 408](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=408)) > physics, logic and ethics ([Location 412](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=412)) > Overall, the aim of a philosophic school was to blend a cosmology, a theory of knowledge and a theory of social and personal ethics into a comprehensive way of thinking about the world. ([Location 414](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=414)) > “Empty is the word of a philosopher,” said Epicurus, “by which no human suffering is treated.”78 ([Location 417](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=417)) > free to differ with or modify. ([Location 422](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=422)) > Romans regarded as their own virtues as a people. These included fortitude, valor, self-discipline, perseverance, and, as reflected in the modern meaning of the word ‘stoic,’ courage in the face of adversity. ([Location 427](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=427)) > On a personal level, Stoicism, and Epicureanism as well, advocated the development of a philosophical calm (ataraxia) and freedom from passions (apatheia) as goals to achieve in life. ([Location 431](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=431)) > Indeed, it was the emphasis of the Stoa and the Garden on personal and individual concerns that made them more popular than the older Academy of Plato and Lyceum of Aristotle, which were more concerned with constructing a just social order. ([Location 434](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=434)) > agoge – a Way of Life. ([Location 436](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=436)) > The emotions often carried to excess were grief, fear, desire, and craving for pleasure, and this was to be excised. ([Location 452](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=452)) > Instead a rational level of caution should replace fear, hope replace desire, and joy replace pleasure. In addition, the wise man will not live in solitude, as advised by Epicurus, because he is naturally made for society and action.87 ([Location 453](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=453)) > Epicurus taught that the attainment of personal happiness came from “pleasure” (hedone), which he defined as freedom from fear and anxiety. ([Location 460](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=460)) > As one modern writer concluded, the slogan “‘eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die’ is really a travesty of Epicureanism; ([Location 465](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=465)) > gods had no control over human affairs and paid no attention to them. ([Location 469](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=469)) > Moreover, death was oblivion and a dispersal of body and soul into atoms and void. ([Location 469](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=469)) > There was no divine punishment or anything else to fear after death. To free people from “the oppressive weight of religion” and “the beliefs of the masses” was one of Epicurus’ main goals, and, for his followers, one of his main achievements.93 ([Location 470](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=470)) > “Live hidden.” ([Location 473](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=473)) > It was not so important that they might not have had the right answers; it was only important that they were asking the right scientific questions. ([Location 492](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=492)) > Lucretius states the first principles: “Nothing can be created out of nothing”99 and “nature dissolves everything back to its own substances but does not destroy something into nothing.”100 ([Location 500](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=500)) > For instance, Lucretius explains the motion of dust particles seen in a sunbeam, as being caused by smaller atoms colliding and moving them.101 This is a correct explanation of what is now called Brownian Motion and it was Einstein’s quantification of this phenomenon in which he deduced characteristics of the impinging atoms that was the work that actually won him the Nobel Prize. ([Location 504](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=504)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Aristotle did not doubt that forms of matter could exist beneath our sense perceptions. He just doubted that these ‘atoms’ or anything else were indivisible because a continuum implied infinite divisibility of anything with extension.105 In other words, according to Aristotle, the atom, if it existed, could be split. ([Location 515](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=515)) > Because so much follows from the initial premises of a philosophy, it is well said that the idea of the universe as a living being is “the fundamental formula of Stoic physics.”111 ([Location 537](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=537)) > The Stoics had their own scenario. They held that the universe underwent cycles of birth and death and rebirth – a process called “burn out” (ekpyrosis). At some point in the far future, the universe would be destroyed by fire. The heating and rarefaction would expand the universe into the void outside. Later, some of the universe would cool to air, earth and water and be born again. In the next cycle the laws of Nature would be the same. ([Location 553](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=553)) > Seneca: “He who is willing, the Fates lead on; he who is unwilling, they drag.”121 ([Location 560](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=560)) > “The wise man is content within himself for living happily, but not for staying alive. For staying alive he needs many things, but for living happily he only needs a mind that is healthy, upright and disdains fortune.”129 ([Location 586](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=586)) > “Our outward appearance should conform to society, but inwardly everything should be different.” ([Location 593](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=593)) > Seneca saw the Stoic “way to the stars” in following the paths of courage (fortitudo), frugality (frugalitas) and self-control (temperantia).135 ([Location 597](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=597)) > Frugalitas was meant to excise what is unnecessary in human life, and therefore free us from chasing after all those superfluous things that enslave us. Its key ([Location 607](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=607)) > Seneca quoted Epicurus: “If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his money, but subtract from his desires.”142 “It is not the person who has too little,” adds Seneca, “but the person who desires more, who is poor.”143 ([Location 613](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=613)) > If you want to chase after more than what is necessary and sufficient, you will have to endure the evils of the world to get it. You will have to bow and scrape, cater and flatter, and endure humiliations. “Men sweat for the superfluous things.”147 ([Location 618](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=618)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Temperantia, or self-control, was the Stoic path to freedom from the effects of passions (apatheia) caused by the turbulence of life. ([Location 629](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=629)) > day? For we are in error when we look ahead for death; the greater part of death has already passed. Death already holds whatever years are behind us. ([Location 662](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=662)) > We have lived on the stormy seas; let us die in port. ([Location 681](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=681)) > Retirement is something you ought neither to flaunt nor conceal. For I would never drive you into some hiding place or oblivion after you have condemned the madness of the human race. ([Location 682](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=682)) > You can lay a claim to quietude without incurring hatred, without regret, without mental pangs. ([Location 687](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=687)) > You have been plunged into a life which will never produce for you an end of misery and servitude. ([Location 695](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=695)) > “It thunders even at the highest altitude.” ([Location 705](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=705)) > This ending is in store for you, unless – what Maecenas wanted too late – you trim your sails, unless you hug the land. ([Location 707](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=707)) > Epicurus. He said, “You must be more circumspect before-hand about those with whom you eat and drink, rather than about what you eat and drink. For to eat meat without a friend is the life of a lion or a wolf.” ([Location 710](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=710)) > He thinks that bestowing favors makes friends, when in fact, those who owe him more, hate him more. ([Location 714](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=714)) > A small debt makes another a debtor; a large one makes him an enemy. ([Location 714](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=714)) > pleaser. For new wine that seems harsh and sour becomes good, but the wine already pleasing when in the cask doesn’t stand age. ([Location 731](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=731)) > honestum2 ([Location 735](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=735)) > I agree with your plan. Conceal yourself in retirement. But also conceal the retirement itself. ([Location 767](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=767)) > Remember this – a wise man is never more engaged than when both divine and human concerns have come into his sight. ([Location 772](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=772)) > There is no reason to inscribe on yourself “philosophy” or “repose.” Give a different name to your design – call it “ill health” or “weakness” or “apathy”. ([Location 774](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=774)) > Many pass by what is open but pry into hidden and obscure places. Sealed places attract the thief. Whatever is open to view seems worthless, so a burglar passes by an open place. These are the habits of the common people, and of everyone who is clueless – a desire to break into secret places. ([Location 777](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=777)) > I do not allot time for sleep, I succumb to it, ([Location 814](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=814)) > Stand up to all fortuitous good with suspicion and alarm. Wild animals and fish are deceived by the lures of such hopes. Do you think they are gifts of fortune? They are insidious traps. Whoever among you wants to live a safe life, as much as he is able, let him avoid those honey-coated benefactions by which we most miserable humans are also deceived. ([Location 820](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=820)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Bear in mind that a person is as well protected by a roof of straw as of gold. ([Location 828](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=828)) > Disdain all ornament and décor requiring unnecessary labor. ([Location 828](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=828)) > Everything that happens by desiring it is alien. ([Location 842](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=842)) - Note: Publilius > What Fortune made yours is not your own. ([Location 844](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=844)) > I think to myself, how many train bodies; how few train character. How many congregate at the Spectacle – a contrived entertainment – and how much solitude surrounds worthwhile arts. ([Location 858](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=858)) > Don’t you desire to find freedom at any cost, you who think of it as your birthright? Why do you look to your strong box? It is not able to buy freedom. And so the designation of “freedom” is put into the records in vain, since they who have bought it and they who have sold it do not have it. It is necessary to give this Good to yourself and to seek it from within yourself. ([Location 868](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=868)) > First free yourself from the fear of death: that puts a yoke on us. Then free yourself from the fear of poverty. If you want to know that nothing about poverty is bad, compare the faces of the rich and the poor with each other. ([Location 871](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=871)) > You will avoid envy if you do not thrust yourself into the face of others, if you do not flaunt your goods, if you know how to enjoy life inwardly. ([Location 904](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=904)) > “To live is to be a soldier.” ([Location 934](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=934)) > “To want nothing takes the place of pleasure. How sweet it is to have tired of wanting and to have left it behind.”(Letter 12). ([Location 941](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=941)) > “I begin to be considerate of myself so that I may be considerate of my wife.” ([Location 944](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=944)) > Every pleasure defers its greatest rewards to the end. Life is most rewarding when gradually subsiding, but not yet on a steep decline. ([Location 961](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=961)) > For we are not summoned from the census in the order of our birth. ([Location 964](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=964)) > I have lived and I have completed the course fortune has given me. ([Location 970](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=970)) > What is true is mine. I persist in throwing Epicurus at you, so that those who swear by the words of another – not because of what is said, but by who said it – should know that the best thoughts are common property. Vale. ([Location 977](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=977)) > Let us realize that Providence saves the world itself from dangers and that the world is no less mortal than we ourselves are. ([Location 1006](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1006)) > It is a pleasure for someone to be with himself for as long a time as possible only when he makes himself worth enjoying. ([Location 1015](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1015)) > Nevertheless we should ask whether the last part of life is the dregs or whether it is in fact the most serene and purest part, if only the mind is without injury and the senses are whole and assist the mind, and if the body is not defective and virtually dead. ([Location 1018](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1018)) > For it makes the greatest difference whether someone is prolonging his life or prolonging his death. ([Location 1020](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1020)) > But if the body is unserviceable, why is it right to lead on a laboring soul? ([Location 1020](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1020)) > perhaps a little before you have to die, you ought to kill yourself, lest when you ought to do it, you may not be able to. ([Location 1021](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1021)) > How much more cruel then do you think it is to have lost something from life as opposed to losing the right to end it. ([Location 1024](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1024)) > the problem is not the ailment, but that you are indignant and complain? ([Location 1038](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1038)) > What, didn’t you know that when you wished for old age, you wished for those things? ([Location 1047](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1047)) > “But I wanted to live, but free from all troubles.” So weak a voice disgraces a man. ([Location 1049](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1049)) > For since I know her spirit is linked to mine, I begin to be considerate of myself so that I may be considerate of her. ([Location 1062](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1062)) > ones. For the good man must live not as long as he pleases, but as long as he ought. He who does not think so much of his wife or friend as to linger longer in life, who persists in dying, he is soft. ([Location 1066](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1066)) > If you want to escape those things that stress you, it is not necessary that you be any place else, but that you be another person. ([Location 1082](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1082)) > He who has learned to die, has unlearned slavery. ([Location 1127](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1127)) > Death is non-existence. I already know what that is. What there was before me will be after me.”(Letter 54). ([Location 1140](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1140)) > “If there were any suffering in death, it necessarily would have been present before we came forth into the light. But we felt nothing vexatious then. I ask, don’t you think someone would be very foolish, if he thinks a lamp worse when extinguished than before it was lit? We also are lit and extinguished.” (Letter 54). ([Location 1147](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1147)) > I ask, don’t you think someone would be very foolish, if he thinks a lamp worse when extinguished than before it was lit? We also are lit and extinguished. ([Location 1266](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1266)) > There is a great difference between being at leisure and being buried. ([Location 1288](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1288)) > Leisure without studies is death and a tomb for the living man. ([Location 1291](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1291)) > If you want to put off all anxiety, no matter what you fear may happen, imagine at least what bad things can occur and measure it against yourself and estimate your own fear. ([Location 1369](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1369)) > I will die, but what you are really saying is that I will cease to be able to be sick, I will cease to be able to be imprisoned, I will cease to be able to die. ([Location 1425](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1425)) > ‘It is not a single death that comes. The death that carries us off is the last death.’ ([Location 1438](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1438)) > A brave and wise man ought not to flee from life, but depart. ([Location 1448](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1448)) > Whenever you stop, if you stop well, it is complete. ([Location 1472](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1472)) > As with a play, so with life it is not important how long it is, but how well it is acted. It is not pertinent at what point you stop. Stop wherever you want; only put a good closing to it. ([Location 1527](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1527)) > If someone is taken there in his early years, one ought to complain no more than if he has made port by a fast sail. ([Location 1537](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1537)) > That life, as you know, must not be retained. For the Good is not to live, but to live well. ([Location 1541](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1541)) > He always considers the quality of life, not its quantity. ([Location 1542](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1542)) > Eternal law has done nothing better than granting us one entrance to life, but many exits. ([Location 1575](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1575)) > Shall I await either the cruelty of sickness or of men when I can escape in the middle of torments and cut down adversities? ([Location 1575](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1575)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > For someone who desires it, nothing stands in the way of breaking off and getting out. ([Location 1606](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1606)) > I ask you: do you judge it more reasonable that you should obey Nature or that Nature should obey you? ([Location 1627](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1627)) > In order to live a long time you need fate. Living long enough is a matter for the soul. Life is long if it is fulfilled. ([Location 1629](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1629)) > but I have viewed every day as the last one. ([Location 1643](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1643)) > Whatever things lie around you in this guest house of life, regard them as baggage. ([Location 1688](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1688)) > Nature lays bare the departer as if he were the enterer. You cannot carry out more than you carried in. ([Location 1689](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1689)) > That day, which you fear as the last one, is the birth of your eternity. ([Location 1692](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1692)) > am doing it so that each day may be for me like the whole of life. I am not snatching at it, by Hercules, as if it were my last day, but I regard it as if it could be my last day. ([Location 1721](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1721)) > We must be prepared for death before we prepare for life. ([Location 1728](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1728)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Whether we have lived enough depends neither on our years nor our days, but on our minds. ([Location 1730](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1730)) # Anni Ultimi  ## Metadata - Author:: [[Alan Scribner and J. C. Douglas Marshall]] - Full Title:: Anni Ultimi - Category: #books ## Highlights > We found Seneca to be a guide and provocateur for our own process of coming to terms with the final years — in Latin, anni ultimi. ([Location 71](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=71)) > In the United States during the 20th century, approximately 80% of the people born lived until the age of sixty, 20% dying before then. In ancient Rome the numbers were approximately the reverse, with about 20% surviving to age sixty, 80% dying before then. ([Location 75](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=75)) > Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born in Cordoba, Spain around the year 1 BCE,2 during the reign of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. ([Location 104](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=104)) > Gallio became Prefect of Greece where, among other things, he presided over the trial of the Christian Paul of Tarsus in Corinth, as reported in the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament. ([Location 110](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=110)) > Ever after he was influenced by the Stoic principles of frugality taught by Attalus and for the rest of his life didn’t eat oysters or mushrooms, didn’t drink wine or take hot baths (only cold or lukewarm ones), didn’t wear perfume, slept on hard pillows and also went swimming every year on January 1 in a cold river. He also practiced daily self-examination and “where I ceased to practice abstinence, I have observed a limit which is very close to abstinence.” ([Location 119](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=119)) > Throughout his life Seneca was plagued by health problems. He was seriously asthmatic, calling his asthma attacks “practicing to die,”10 and may have had catarrh and consumption as well. ([Location 124](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=124)) > the main source of Rome’s wheat. ([Location 138](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=138)) > It took the form of a discussion by the gods concerning the possible deification of Claudius after his death, or, as Seneca termed it, Claudius’ “pumpkinification.” ([Location 229](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=229)) > The first five years of Nero’s reign are noted in Roman history as the quinquennium, some of the best years of imperial rule, according to the later emperor Trajan.34 This was in no small measure due to the influence of Seneca. ([Location 233](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=233)) > It recommends that the ruler should remind himself that “a person who lacks everything except the name ‘human being’ finds favor with me…I am moved by one person’s extreme youth and another’s extreme age. One I have pardoned because of his dignity, another because of his humility. Whenever I have found no cause for mercy, I spared myself the need to find a cause.” ([Location 242](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=242)) > Seneca favored treating slaves as fellow human beings. ([Location 254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=254)) > However, Seneca was often attacked because his words as a philosopher and a Stoic sometimes seemed at odds with his actions as a politician and courtier. Feathering his nest by accumulating enormous wealth hardly appeared to be in accord with his advocacy of Stoic principles of virtue, frugality and the simple life. ([Location 282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=282)) > Though this explanation is convenient, it may also have been that Seneca, in some odd way, was attracted equally to both austerity and extravagance. He seems to have embraced both extremes. ([Location 291](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=291)) > Nero’s reign lasted for another three years, when an army revolt and march on Rome forced him to commit suicide at the age of 31, his last words being “what an artist is being lost.” ([Location 400](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=400)) > The underlying principle of Stoicism, as well as of other Greek philosophic schools, was the achievement of happiness (eudaimonia) by living “according to nature” (kata physin). ([Location 408](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=408)) > physics, logic and ethics ([Location 412](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=412)) > Overall, the aim of a philosophic school was to blend a cosmology, a theory of knowledge and a theory of social and personal ethics into a comprehensive way of thinking about the world. ([Location 414](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=414)) > “Empty is the word of a philosopher,” said Epicurus, “by which no human suffering is treated.”78 ([Location 417](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=417)) > free to differ with or modify. ([Location 422](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=422)) > Romans regarded as their own virtues as a people. These included fortitude, valor, self-discipline, perseverance, and, as reflected in the modern meaning of the word ‘stoic,’ courage in the face of adversity. ([Location 427](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=427)) > On a personal level, Stoicism, and Epicureanism as well, advocated the development of a philosophical calm (ataraxia) and freedom from passions (apatheia) as goals to achieve in life. ([Location 431](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=431)) > Indeed, it was the emphasis of the Stoa and the Garden on personal and individual concerns that made them more popular than the older Academy of Plato and Lyceum of Aristotle, which were more concerned with constructing a just social order. ([Location 434](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=434)) > agoge – a Way of Life. ([Location 436](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=436)) > The emotions often carried to excess were grief, fear, desire, and craving for pleasure, and this was to be excised. ([Location 452](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=452)) > Instead a rational level of caution should replace fear, hope replace desire, and joy replace pleasure. In addition, the wise man will not live in solitude, as advised by Epicurus, because he is naturally made for society and action.87 ([Location 453](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=453)) > Epicurus taught that the attainment of personal happiness came from “pleasure” (hedone), which he defined as freedom from fear and anxiety. ([Location 460](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=460)) > As one modern writer concluded, the slogan “‘eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die’ is really a travesty of Epicureanism; ([Location 465](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=465)) > gods had no control over human affairs and paid no attention to them. ([Location 469](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=469)) > Moreover, death was oblivion and a dispersal of body and soul into atoms and void. ([Location 469](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=469)) > There was no divine punishment or anything else to fear after death. To free people from “the oppressive weight of religion” and “the beliefs of the masses” was one of Epicurus’ main goals, and, for his followers, one of his main achievements.93 ([Location 470](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=470)) > “Live hidden.” ([Location 473](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=473)) > It was not so important that they might not have had the right answers; it was only important that they were asking the right scientific questions. ([Location 492](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=492)) > Lucretius states the first principles: “Nothing can be created out of nothing”99 and “nature dissolves everything back to its own substances but does not destroy something into nothing.”100 ([Location 500](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=500)) > For instance, Lucretius explains the motion of dust particles seen in a sunbeam, as being caused by smaller atoms colliding and moving them.101 This is a correct explanation of what is now called Brownian Motion and it was Einstein’s quantification of this phenomenon in which he deduced characteristics of the impinging atoms that was the work that actually won him the Nobel Prize. ([Location 504](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=504)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Aristotle did not doubt that forms of matter could exist beneath our sense perceptions. He just doubted that these ‘atoms’ or anything else were indivisible because a continuum implied infinite divisibility of anything with extension.105 In other words, according to Aristotle, the atom, if it existed, could be split. ([Location 515](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=515)) > Because so much follows from the initial premises of a philosophy, it is well said that the idea of the universe as a living being is “the fundamental formula of Stoic physics.”111 ([Location 537](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=537)) > The Stoics had their own scenario. They held that the universe underwent cycles of birth and death and rebirth – a process called “burn out” (ekpyrosis). At some point in the far future, the universe would be destroyed by fire. The heating and rarefaction would expand the universe into the void outside. Later, some of the universe would cool to air, earth and water and be born again. In the next cycle the laws of Nature would be the same. ([Location 553](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=553)) > Seneca: “He who is willing, the Fates lead on; he who is unwilling, they drag.”121 ([Location 560](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=560)) > “The wise man is content within himself for living happily, but not for staying alive. For staying alive he needs many things, but for living happily he only needs a mind that is healthy, upright and disdains fortune.”129 ([Location 586](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=586)) > “Our outward appearance should conform to society, but inwardly everything should be different.” ([Location 593](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=593)) > Seneca saw the Stoic “way to the stars” in following the paths of courage (fortitudo), frugality (frugalitas) and self-control (temperantia).135 ([Location 597](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=597)) > Frugalitas was meant to excise what is unnecessary in human life, and therefore free us from chasing after all those superfluous things that enslave us. Its key ([Location 607](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=607)) > Seneca quoted Epicurus: “If you wish to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his money, but subtract from his desires.”142 “It is not the person who has too little,” adds Seneca, “but the person who desires more, who is poor.”143 ([Location 613](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=613)) > If you want to chase after more than what is necessary and sufficient, you will have to endure the evils of the world to get it. You will have to bow and scrape, cater and flatter, and endure humiliations. “Men sweat for the superfluous things.”147 ([Location 618](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=618)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Temperantia, or self-control, was the Stoic path to freedom from the effects of passions (apatheia) caused by the turbulence of life. ([Location 629](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=629)) > day? For we are in error when we look ahead for death; the greater part of death has already passed. Death already holds whatever years are behind us. ([Location 662](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=662)) > We have lived on the stormy seas; let us die in port. ([Location 681](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=681)) > Retirement is something you ought neither to flaunt nor conceal. For I would never drive you into some hiding place or oblivion after you have condemned the madness of the human race. ([Location 682](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=682)) > You can lay a claim to quietude without incurring hatred, without regret, without mental pangs. ([Location 687](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=687)) > You have been plunged into a life which will never produce for you an end of misery and servitude. ([Location 695](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=695)) > “It thunders even at the highest altitude.” ([Location 705](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=705)) > This ending is in store for you, unless – what Maecenas wanted too late – you trim your sails, unless you hug the land. ([Location 707](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=707)) > Epicurus. He said, “You must be more circumspect before-hand about those with whom you eat and drink, rather than about what you eat and drink. For to eat meat without a friend is the life of a lion or a wolf.” ([Location 710](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=710)) > He thinks that bestowing favors makes friends, when in fact, those who owe him more, hate him more. ([Location 714](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=714)) > A small debt makes another a debtor; a large one makes him an enemy. ([Location 714](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=714)) > pleaser. For new wine that seems harsh and sour becomes good, but the wine already pleasing when in the cask doesn’t stand age. ([Location 731](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=731)) > honestum2 ([Location 735](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=735)) > I agree with your plan. Conceal yourself in retirement. But also conceal the retirement itself. ([Location 767](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=767)) > Remember this – a wise man is never more engaged than when both divine and human concerns have come into his sight. ([Location 772](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=772)) > There is no reason to inscribe on yourself “philosophy” or “repose.” Give a different name to your design – call it “ill health” or “weakness” or “apathy”. ([Location 774](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=774)) > Many pass by what is open but pry into hidden and obscure places. Sealed places attract the thief. Whatever is open to view seems worthless, so a burglar passes by an open place. These are the habits of the common people, and of everyone who is clueless – a desire to break into secret places. ([Location 777](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=777)) > I do not allot time for sleep, I succumb to it, ([Location 814](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=814)) > Stand up to all fortuitous good with suspicion and alarm. Wild animals and fish are deceived by the lures of such hopes. Do you think they are gifts of fortune? They are insidious traps. Whoever among you wants to live a safe life, as much as he is able, let him avoid those honey-coated benefactions by which we most miserable humans are also deceived. ([Location 820](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=820)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Bear in mind that a person is as well protected by a roof of straw as of gold. ([Location 828](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=828)) > Disdain all ornament and décor requiring unnecessary labor. ([Location 828](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=828)) > Everything that happens by desiring it is alien. ([Location 842](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=842)) - Note: Publilius > What Fortune made yours is not your own. ([Location 844](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=844)) > I think to myself, how many train bodies; how few train character. How many congregate at the Spectacle – a contrived entertainment – and how much solitude surrounds worthwhile arts. ([Location 858](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=858)) > Don’t you desire to find freedom at any cost, you who think of it as your birthright? Why do you look to your strong box? It is not able to buy freedom. And so the designation of “freedom” is put into the records in vain, since they who have bought it and they who have sold it do not have it. It is necessary to give this Good to yourself and to seek it from within yourself. ([Location 868](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=868)) > First free yourself from the fear of death: that puts a yoke on us. Then free yourself from the fear of poverty. If you want to know that nothing about poverty is bad, compare the faces of the rich and the poor with each other. ([Location 871](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=871)) > You will avoid envy if you do not thrust yourself into the face of others, if you do not flaunt your goods, if you know how to enjoy life inwardly. ([Location 904](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=904)) > “To live is to be a soldier.” ([Location 934](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=934)) > “To want nothing takes the place of pleasure. How sweet it is to have tired of wanting and to have left it behind.”(Letter 12). ([Location 941](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=941)) > “I begin to be considerate of myself so that I may be considerate of my wife.” ([Location 944](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=944)) > Every pleasure defers its greatest rewards to the end. Life is most rewarding when gradually subsiding, but not yet on a steep decline. ([Location 961](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=961)) > For we are not summoned from the census in the order of our birth. ([Location 964](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=964)) > I have lived and I have completed the course fortune has given me. ([Location 970](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=970)) > What is true is mine. I persist in throwing Epicurus at you, so that those who swear by the words of another – not because of what is said, but by who said it – should know that the best thoughts are common property. Vale. ([Location 977](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=977)) > Let us realize that Providence saves the world itself from dangers and that the world is no less mortal than we ourselves are. ([Location 1006](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1006)) > It is a pleasure for someone to be with himself for as long a time as possible only when he makes himself worth enjoying. ([Location 1015](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1015)) > Nevertheless we should ask whether the last part of life is the dregs or whether it is in fact the most serene and purest part, if only the mind is without injury and the senses are whole and assist the mind, and if the body is not defective and virtually dead. ([Location 1018](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1018)) > For it makes the greatest difference whether someone is prolonging his life or prolonging his death. ([Location 1020](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1020)) > But if the body is unserviceable, why is it right to lead on a laboring soul? ([Location 1020](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1020)) > perhaps a little before you have to die, you ought to kill yourself, lest when you ought to do it, you may not be able to. ([Location 1021](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1021)) > How much more cruel then do you think it is to have lost something from life as opposed to losing the right to end it. ([Location 1024](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1024)) > the problem is not the ailment, but that you are indignant and complain? ([Location 1038](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1038)) > What, didn’t you know that when you wished for old age, you wished for those things? ([Location 1047](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1047)) > “But I wanted to live, but free from all troubles.” So weak a voice disgraces a man. ([Location 1049](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1049)) > For since I know her spirit is linked to mine, I begin to be considerate of myself so that I may be considerate of her. ([Location 1062](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1062)) > ones. For the good man must live not as long as he pleases, but as long as he ought. He who does not think so much of his wife or friend as to linger longer in life, who persists in dying, he is soft. ([Location 1066](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1066)) > If you want to escape those things that stress you, it is not necessary that you be any place else, but that you be another person. ([Location 1082](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1082)) > He who has learned to die, has unlearned slavery. ([Location 1127](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1127)) > Death is non-existence. I already know what that is. What there was before me will be after me.”(Letter 54). ([Location 1140](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1140)) > “If there were any suffering in death, it necessarily would have been present before we came forth into the light. But we felt nothing vexatious then. I ask, don’t you think someone would be very foolish, if he thinks a lamp worse when extinguished than before it was lit? We also are lit and extinguished.” (Letter 54). ([Location 1147](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1147)) > I ask, don’t you think someone would be very foolish, if he thinks a lamp worse when extinguished than before it was lit? We also are lit and extinguished. ([Location 1266](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1266)) > There is a great difference between being at leisure and being buried. ([Location 1288](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1288)) > Leisure without studies is death and a tomb for the living man. ([Location 1291](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1291)) > If you want to put off all anxiety, no matter what you fear may happen, imagine at least what bad things can occur and measure it against yourself and estimate your own fear. ([Location 1369](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1369)) > I will die, but what you are really saying is that I will cease to be able to be sick, I will cease to be able to be imprisoned, I will cease to be able to die. ([Location 1425](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1425)) > ‘It is not a single death that comes. The death that carries us off is the last death.’ ([Location 1438](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1438)) > A brave and wise man ought not to flee from life, but depart. ([Location 1448](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1448)) > Whenever you stop, if you stop well, it is complete. ([Location 1472](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1472)) > As with a play, so with life it is not important how long it is, but how well it is acted. It is not pertinent at what point you stop. Stop wherever you want; only put a good closing to it. ([Location 1527](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1527)) > If someone is taken there in his early years, one ought to complain no more than if he has made port by a fast sail. ([Location 1537](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1537)) > That life, as you know, must not be retained. For the Good is not to live, but to live well. ([Location 1541](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1541)) > He always considers the quality of life, not its quantity. ([Location 1542](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1542)) > Eternal law has done nothing better than granting us one entrance to life, but many exits. ([Location 1575](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1575)) > Shall I await either the cruelty of sickness or of men when I can escape in the middle of torments and cut down adversities? ([Location 1575](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1575)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > For someone who desires it, nothing stands in the way of breaking off and getting out. ([Location 1606](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1606)) > I ask you: do you judge it more reasonable that you should obey Nature or that Nature should obey you? ([Location 1627](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1627)) > In order to live a long time you need fate. Living long enough is a matter for the soul. Life is long if it is fulfilled. ([Location 1629](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1629)) > but I have viewed every day as the last one. ([Location 1643](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1643)) > Whatever things lie around you in this guest house of life, regard them as baggage. ([Location 1688](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1688)) > Nature lays bare the departer as if he were the enterer. You cannot carry out more than you carried in. ([Location 1689](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1689)) > That day, which you fear as the last one, is the birth of your eternity. ([Location 1692](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1692)) > am doing it so that each day may be for me like the whole of life. I am not snatching at it, by Hercules, as if it were my last day, but I regard it as if it could be my last day. ([Location 1721](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1721)) > We must be prepared for death before we prepare for life. ([Location 1728](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1728)) - Tags: [[favorite]] > Whether we have lived enough depends neither on our years nor our days, but on our minds. ([Location 1730](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B006276LVM&location=1730))