living, by reason that you are still in being; dead, because you are no
more. Moreover, no one dies before his hour: the time you leave behind
was no more yours than that was lapsed and gone before you came into the
world; nor does it any more concern you.

"'Respice enim, quam nil ad nos anteacta vetustas
Temporis aeterni fuerit.'

["Consider how as nothing to us is the old age of times past."
--Lucretius iii. 985]

Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consists
not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived
long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present
with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to
have a sufficient length of life. Is it possible you can imagine never
to arrive at the place towards which you are continually going? and yet
there is no journey but hath its end. And, if company will make it more
pleasant or more easy to you, does not all the world go the self-same
way?

"'Omnia te, vita perfuncta, sequentur.'

["All things, then, life over, must follow thee."
--Lucretius, iii. 981.]

"Does not all the world dance the same brawl that you do? Is there
anything that does not grow old, as well as you? A thousand men, a
thousand animals, a thousand other creatures, die at the same moment that
you die: