"Nor shall you so much as wish for the life you are so concerned about:
"'Nec sibi enim quisquam tum se vitamque requirit. ………………………………………….. "'Nec desiderium nostri nos afficit ullum.'
"Death is less to be feared than nothing, if there could be anything less than nothing.
"'Multo . . . mortem minus ad nos esse putandium,
Si minus esse potest, quam quod nihil esse videmus.'
"Neither can it any way concern you, whether you are living or dead: living, by reason that you are still in being; dead, because you are no more. Moreover, no one dies before his hour: the time you leave behind was no more yours than that was lapsed and gone before you came into the world; nor does it any more concern you.
"'Respice enim, quam nil ad nos anteacta vetustas
Temporis aeterni fuerit.'
["Consider how as nothing to us is the old age of times past."
—Lucretius iii. 985]
Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to have a sufficient length of life. Is it possible you can imagine never to arrive at the place towards which you are continually going? and yet there is no journey but hath its end. And, if company will make it more pleasant or more easy to you, does not all the world go the self-same way?
"'Omnia te, vita perfuncta, sequentur.'
["All things, then, life over, must follow thee."
—Lucretius, iii. 981.]