Meditations, Book 4, Section 42

Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor

Here's a simple but powerful remedy for the fear of death. Think about people who lived long lives and clung greedily to them. What did they gain over those who died young? They all ended up dead anyway. Look at Cadicianus, Fabius, Julianus Lepidus, and others who buried many friends but were eventually buried themselves. Any human life is short. And even that short time is filled with troubles, bad moods, and the burden of a failing body. So treat the length of your life as unimportant. If you look backward, you see endless time before you were born. If you look forward, you see endless time after you die. In all that infinity, what difference does it make whether something lives three days or three lifetimes?

Marcus Aurelius — The Emperor Original

It is but an ordinary coarse one, yet it is a good effectual remedy against the fear of death, for a man to consider in his mind the examples of such, who greedily and covetously (as it were) did for a long time enjoy their lives. What have they got more, than they whose deaths have been untimely? Are not they themselves dead at the last? as Cadiciant's, Fabius, Julianus Lepidus, or any other who in their lifetime having buried many, were at the last buried themselves. The whole space of any man's life, is but little; and as little as it is, with what troubles, with what manner of dispositions, and in the society of how wretched a body must it be passed! Let it be therefore unto thee altogether as a matter of indifferency. For if thou shalt look backward; behold, what an infinite chaos of time doth present itself unto thee; and as infinite a chaos, if thou shalt look forward. In that which is so infinite, what difference can there be between that which liveth but three days, and that which liveth three ages?