Book Review: Shortness of Life

Book Author: Seneca

Seneca is a compelling figure. A powerhouse of Rome gracefully exiled walking his talk: detachment from what you cannot control. So impressive to see him live his philosophy. I love his stories about the impressive figures of Rome. So strange to be a contemporary of emperors and senators.

Out of the many hundreds of books I’ve read this is in my top 5 easily. This is my second read through. The first three pages alone are packed with haymakers. The rest has some gems but also some rambling.

I love these quotes.

Most human beings, …complain about the meanness of nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, and because this spell of time given to us rushes by so swiftly and rapidly that life, with very few exceptions, ceases for the rest of us just when we are ready for it.

Nature is generous but cruel. So many years of study go into making a mind to just be then thrown away after a few decades.

Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed… So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill supplied but wasteful of it.

Life is squandered. People stay stuck in the same spot as the world flies by them. Investment means growth, progress, moving towards a better future.

People are frugal in guarding their personal property, but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right they ought to be stingy.

So true!