Cicero

For can there be anything more absurd than to seek more journey money, the less there remains of the journey?

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Do not suppose, my dearest sons, that when I have left you I shall be nowhere and no one.

Even when I was with you, you did not see my soul, but knew that it was in this body of mine from what I did.

Believe then that it is still the same, even though you see it not.

The honours paid to illustrious men had not continued to exist after their death, had the souls of these very men not done something to make us retain our recollection of them beyond the ordinary time.

And yet it is in sleepers that souls most clearly reveal their divine nature; for they foresee many events when they are allowed to escape and are left free.

But if my soul is to perish with my body, nevertheless do you from awe of the gods, who guard and govern this fair universe, preserve my memory by the loyalty and piety of your lives.

Don't you think that the soul which has the clearer and longer sight sees that it is starting for better things, while the soul whose vision is dimmer does not see it?

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.

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

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.

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.

I have convinced myself, and I hold--in view of the rapid movement of the soul, its vivid memory of the past and its prophetic knowledge of the future, its many accomplishments, its vast range of knowledge, its numerous discoveries --that…