On the Shortness of Life

by Seneca

Overview

From the author of Letters from a Stoic (Epistulae Morales), comes another brilliant, timeless guide to living well.This new edition of Seneca's On the Shortness of Life (De Brevitate Vitae) from The Augustine Press has been revised with footnotes by author Damian Stevenson.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788835371236
Publisher:	GIANLUCA
Publication date:	02/03/2020
Sold by:	StreetLib SRL
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	450,567
File size:	336 KB

About the Author

Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger usually known as Seneca, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and, in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature.

Read an Excerpt

On the Shortness of Life

Most human beings, Paulinus,* complain about the meanness of nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, and because this spell of time that has been given to us rushes by so swiftly and rapidly that with very few exceptions life ceases for the rest of us just when we are getting ready for it. Nor is it just the man in the street and the unthinking mass of people who groan over this - as they see it - universal evil: the same feeling lies behind complaints from even distinguished men. Hence the dictum of the greatest of doctors:† 'Life is short, art is long.' Hence too the grievance, most improper to a wise man, which Aristotle expressed when he was taking nature to task for indulging animals with such long existences that they can live through five or ten human lifetimes, while a far shorter limit is set for men who are born to a great and extensive destiny. It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested.

* A friend of Seneca’s.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "On the Shortness of Life"
by .
Copyright © 2005 C. D. N. Seneca.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
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Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

On the Shortness of LifeOn the Shortness of Life

Consolation to Helvia

On Tranquility of Mind

Editorial Reviews

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