On the record44 BC
For they are like lamps: unless you feed them with oil, they too go out from old age.
Said by
Cicero
Source
gutenberg.orgCicero: “For they are like lamps: unless you feed them with oil, they too go out from old age.”
Editor's note · Context
Using a vivid analogy, Cicero explains that the intellect and soul, like lamps, require continuous sustenance to avoid fading with age.
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44 BC
But had it not been the case that souls were immortal, it would not have been the souls of all the best men that made the greatest efforts after an immortality of fame.
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Again, is there not the fact that the wisest man ever dies with the greatest cheerfulness, the most unwise with the least?
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I don't wish to depreciate life, as many men and good philosophers have often done; nor do I regret having lived, for I have done so in a way that lets me think that I was not born in vain.
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