From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Think each of your days to be an individual life. The man who accustoms himself to this way of thought, for whom life is complete each day, is free of...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: What could be more foolish than to marvel that something [i.e. death] will happen on a certain day, when it could happen on any day? (Epistle 101)  ...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Since death is never contemplated except as another’s fate, instances of mortality pile up before us but don’t abide any longer than our...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: What’s the most complete span of a life, you ask? To live until attaining wisdom. (Epistle 93) Thought: Live to learn enough or you would not had...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: It’s not in my power how long I will exist, but rather how long I will truly exist. (Epistle 93) Thought: As you have to live, live best you can....

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Just as a man of smaller stature can be complete, so a life can be complete in a smaller stretch of time. (Epistle 93) Thought: Size of the body does not...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: As for myself, I wouldn’t refuse the addition of more years… But if my life span is cut short, I will say that I lacked nothing that would...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: In what way were eighty years, passed in sloth, a benefit to someone? He didn’t live but only lingered in life; he didn’t die late, but died a...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Which do you think more fair, I ask you: that you obey Nature, or that Nature obey you? (Epistle 93) Thought: Have the nature of humility or nature will...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Just as it is with storytelling, so with life: it’s important how well it is done, not how long… It doesn’t matter at what point you...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Just as we ignore the clippings from our beard and hair, just so, that divine sort of mind, as it prepares to leave its human form, judges that the...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Before I became old, I took care to live well; in old age I take care to die well. And dying well means dying willingly. (Epistle 61) Thought: Live well,...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Do you not realise that dying, too, is one of those duties of life? You’re not abandoning any duty. (Epistle 77.5.20) Thought: To depart well is to...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: You poor man – you’re a slave to people, to things, to life (for a life lived without the courage to die is slavery). (Epistle 77.5-20)...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: You’re afraid to die, but are you living now? (Epistle 77.5-20) Thought: Be more ‘afraid’ of not living well enough now… to not...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Living is not a great matter… To die honourably, prudently, bravely – now that is great. – Tullius Marcellinus  Thought: To also...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: We must prepare for death before life. (Epistle 61) Thought: Live before you die. Die before you die...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Let’s compose our minds such that we want whatever the situation demands, and in particular that we contemplate our end without sadness. (Epistle...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: I make it so that my day is a small version of my whole life… I look upon it as though it could be my last. (Epistle 61) Thought: Live each day...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: There’s only one way we can say that the life we live is long; if it is enough. (To Marcia 21.1-3) Thought: Live fully and thus enough, and life is...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: We are in no one’s power, if death is in our power. (Epistle 91.18-21) Thought: If we are always prepared for death, and for how we will die, we...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: He lives badly who does not know how to die well… He who fears death will never do anything to help the living. But he who knows that this was...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Death is the undoing of all our sorrows, an end beyond which our ills cannot go; it returns us to that peace in which we reposed before we were born. If...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Nothing can be of such great benefit to you, in your quest for moderation in all things, than to frequently contemplate the brevity of one’s life...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Praise and emulate the man who does not disdain to die, though it’s pleasant to live, what virtue is there in leaving by being thrown out? Yet here...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Then little by little the suspirium [i.e. respiratory illness], which had turned into a kind of panting, gave me longer respites and slowed down. But it...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: [A]ll things that seem to die are in fact only transformed; thus the one who will return to the world should leave it with equanimity. Just look at how...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Those who have learnt how to die have unlearned how to be slaves. It is a power above, and beyond all other powers. What matter to them the prison-house,...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: Because these examples [of death] are so frequent [in his writings] and so grim, modern readers have sometimes found Seneca’s writings to be macabre...

From: ‘How To Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life’ by Seneca, edited, translated, and introduced by James S. Romm: Quote: [O]ne must rehearse for death throughout one’s life – for life, properly understood, is really only a journey toward death, we are dying every...