Cicero

But I suppose the immortal gods to have sown souls broadcast in human bodies, that there might be some to survey the world, and while contemplating the order of the heavenly bodies to imitate it in the unvarying regularity of their life.

The soul, in fact, is of heavenly origin, forced down from its home in the highest, and, so to speak, buried in earth, a place quite opposed to its divine nature and its immortality.

For as long as we are imprisoned in this framework of the body, we perform a certain function and laborious work assigned us by fate.

I believe, Scipio and Laelius, that your fathers--those illustrious men and my dearest friends--are still alive, and that too with a life which alone deserves the name.

For I do not see why I should not venture to tell you my personal opinion as to death, of which I seem to myself to have a clearer vision in proportion as I am nearer to it.

That, therefore, which young men--not only uninstructed, but absolutely ignorant--treat as of no account, shall men who are neither young nor ignorant shrink from in terror?

As death, therefore, is hanging over our head every hour, how can a man ever be unshaken in soul if he fears it?

For die we certainly must, and that too without being certain whether it may not be this very day.

But to disregard death is a lesson which must be studied from our youth up; for unless that is learnt, no one can have a quiet mind.

Just as the builder of a ship or a house can break them up more easily than any one else, so the nature that knit together the human frame can also best unfasten it.

The result of this is, that old age is even more confident and courageous than youth.

Again, there is no fixed borderline for old age, and you are making a good and proper use of it as long as you can satisfy the call of duty and disregard death.

This ripeness is so delightful to me, that, as I approach nearer to death, I seem as it were to be sighting land, and to be coming to port at last after a long voyage.

Again, just as apples when unripe are torn from trees, but when ripe and mellow drop down, so it is violence that takes life from young men, ripeness from old.

Accordingly, the death of young men seems to me like putting out a great fire with a deluge of water; but old men die like a fire going out because it has burnt down of its own nature without artificial means.

Now the harvest of old age is, as I have often said, the memory and rich store of blessings laid up in easier life.

An actor, in order to earn approval, is not bound to perform the play from beginning to end; let him only satisfy the audience in whatever act he appears.

Whatever time each is granted for life, with that he is bound to be content.

Hours indeed, and days and months and years depart, nor does past time ever return, nor can the future be known.

For what can be more foolish than to regard the uncertain as certain, the false as true?

If that were not so, life would be conducted better and more wisely; for it is in old men that thought, reason, and prudence are to be found; and if there had been no old men, States would never have existed at all.

After all, who is such a fool as to feel certain--however young he may be--that he will be alive in the evening?

Why then should I be afraid if I am destined either not to be miserable after death or even to be happy?

Death, that is either to be totally disregarded, if it entirely extinguishes the soul, or is even to be desired, if it brings him where he is to exist forever.

But what a poor dotard must he be who has not learnt in the course of so long a life that death is not a thing to be feared?