On the Shortness of Life

am filled with wonder when I see some men asking others for
their time, and those who are asked for it most willing to give it:
both parties consider the object for which the time is given, but
neither of them thinks of the time itself, as though in asking for
this one asked for nothing, and in giving it one gave nothing: we
play with what is the most precious of all things: yet it escapes
men’s notice, because it is an incorporeal thing, and because it
does not come before our eyes; and therefore it is held very cheap,
nay, hardly any value whatever is put upon it. Men set the greatest
store upon presents or pensions, and hire out their work, their
services, or their care in order to gain them: no one values time:
they give it much more freely, as though it cost nothing. Yet you
will see these same people clasping the knees of their physician
as suppliants when they are sick and in present peril of death, and
if threatened with a capital charge willing to give all that they
possess in order that they may live: so inconsistent are they.
Indeed, if the number of every man’s future years could be laid
before him, as we can lay that of his past years, how anxious those
who found that they had but few years remaining would be to make
the most of them? Yet it is easy to arrange the distribution of a
quantity, however small, if we know how much there is: what you
ought to husband most carefully is that which may run short you
know not when. Yet you have no reason to suppose that they do not
know how dear a thing time is: they are wont to say to those whom
they especially love that they are ready to give them a part of
their own years. They do give them, and know not that they are
giving them; but they give them in such a manner that they themselves
lose them without the others gaining them. They do not, however,
know whence they obtain their supply, and therefore they are able
to endure the waste of what is not seen: yet no one will give you
back your years, no one will restore them to you again: your life
will run its course when once it has begun, and will neither begin
again or efface what it has done. It will make no disturbance, it
will give you no warning of how fast it flies: it will move silently
on: it will not prolong itself at the command of a king, or at the
wish of a nation: as it started on its first day, so it will run:
it will never turn aside, never delay. What follows, then? Why! you
are busy, but life is hurrying on: death will be here some time or
other, and you must attend to him, whether you will or no.