- Suppose that a god announced that you were going to die
tomorrow “or the day after.” Unless you were a complete
coward you wouldn’t kick up a fuss about which day it was
—what difference could it make? Now recognize that the
difference between years from now and tomorrow is just as
small. - Don’t let yourself forget how many doctors have died,
after furrowing their brows over how many deathbeds. How
many astrologers, after pompous forecasts about others’
ends. How many philosophers, after endless disquisitions on
death and immortality. How many warriors, after inflicting
thousands of casualties themselves. How many tyrants, after
abusing the power of life and death atrociously, as if they
were themselves immortal.
How many whole cities have met their end: Helike,
Pompeii, Herculaneum, and countless others.
And all the ones you know yourself, one after another. One
who laid out another for burial, and was buried himself, and
then the man who buried him—all in the same short space of
time.
In short, know this: Human lives are brief and trivial.
Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash.
To pass through this brief life as nature demands. To give