• So you must not think a man has lived long because he has white hair and wrinkles: he has not lived long, just existed long.

    —Seneca, On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It

  • Now while the blood is hot you should make your way with vigor to better things. In this kind of life you will find much that is worth your study: the love and practice of the virtues, the forgetfulness of the passions, the knowledge of how to live and die, and a life of deep tranquility.

    Indeed the state of all who are preoccupied is wretched, but the most wretched are those who are toiling not even at their own preoccupations, but must regulate their sleep by another’s, and their walk by another’s pace, and obey order in those freest of all things, loving and hating. If such people want to know how short their lives are, let them reflect how small a portion is their own.

    So, when you see a man repeatedly wearing the robe of office, or one whose name is often spoken in the Forum, do not envy him: these things are won at the cost of life.

    —Seneca, On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It

  • Feeble old men pray for a few more years; they pretend they are younger than they are; they comfort themselves by this deception and fool themselves as eagerly as if they fooled Fate at the same time. But when at last some illness has reminded them of their mortality, how terrified do they die, as if they were not just passing out of life but being dragged out of it. They exclaim that they were fools because they have not really lived, and that if only they can recover from this illness they will live in leisure. Then they reflect how pointlessly they acquired things they never would enjoy, and how all their toil has been in vain. But for those whose life is far removed from all business it must be amply long. None of it is frittered away, none of it scattered here and there, none of it committed to fortune, none of it lost through carelessness, none of it wasted on largesse, none of it superfluous: the whole of it, so to speak, is well invested. So, however short, it is fully sufficient, and therefore whenever his last day comes, the wise man will not hesitate to meet death with a firm step.

    —Seneca, On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It

  • A desert hunter saw Abba Antony having fun with the brothers. He was shocked and expressed his dismay because of their frivolity. The old man said to the hunter, “Put an arrow in your bow and shoot it.” When he did so, Antony said, “Now shoot another.” Again, the hunter complied.

    Then the old man asked him to shoot a third arrow.  The hunter hesitated. “If I bend my bow too many times, I will weaken and break it.”

    Antony said to him, “It is the same with God’s work. If we stretch the brothers beyond measure, they will weaken and break.”

    By Way of the Desert: 365 Daily Readings

  • In case you think I am simply using the teaching of philosophers to make light of the trails of poverty, which no one feels to be a burden unless he thinks it that, first consider that by far the greater proportion of men are poor, but you will not see them looking at all more gloomy and anxious than the rich. In fact, I rather suspect that they are happier in proportion as their minds have less to harry them.

    —Seneca, On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It

  • “There are only two people who can tell you the truth about yourself – an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly.”

    —Antisthenes

  • “A couple of times in your life, it happens like that. You meet a stranger, and all you know is that you need to know everything about them.”

    —Lisa Kleypas

  • Hold your approaching death and the Judgment constantly in your mind, and you will preserve your soul from sin.

    —Abba Evagrius

  • The Christian must follow after those pleasures which are both natural and necessary. The pleasures which are considered healthy are those that are not bound up with pain, and bring no cause for repentance, and result in no other harm, and keep us within the bounds of moderation, and do not draw us away from serious occupations, and do not make slaves of us.

    —John of Damascus

  • Finally, to see how necessary it is to love yourself, look at God’s great commandment to love our neighbor as ourself. If you don’t love yourself, you can’t even get off the ground with that commandment. In the early days of Christianity, people were taught not to try to obey that commandment until they had developed a healthy love for themselves first, and learned to protect and benefit themselves in many ways. One holy teacher said it’s better to be regarded as a destitute tramp than to try to benefit your neighbor before you have learned to benefit yourself. Running around doing a lot of charitable things for others when you still aren’t able to do anything charitable for yourself is a dangerous waste of time, because it nourishes hypocrisy and arrogance and resentment and cruelty. And you can’t possibly understand how to protect and comfort another person, how to meet his needs or lead him into a good life, unless you’ve learned to do those things first for your own self. So before you worry much about anything else or think about really benefitting any other people in the world, take hold of the natural self-love God has given you and become a faithful benefactor to yourself.

    Who is God? Who Am I? Who Are You?
    Dee Pennock