Letter 61 — On Meeting Death Cheerfully (§4)

“We must make ready for death before we make ready for life. Life is well enough furnished, but we are too greedy with regard to its furnishings; something always seems to us lacking, and will always seem lacking. To have lived long enough depends neither upon our years nor upon our days, but upon our minds. I have lived, my dear friend Lucilius, long enough. I have had my fill; I await death. Farewell. ↑ A reminiscence of Lucretius, iii. 938 f. Cur non ut plenus vitae conviva recedus Aequo animoque capis securam, stulte, quietem? Cf. also Horace, Sat. i. 1. 118 f. vitae Cedat uti conviva satur.”