Plain
Seneca — The Senator

You might ask me what I mean by "busy men." Don't think I'm only talking about lawyers who get chased out of courtrooms at closing time. Or those who get pushed around by crowds of their own clients, or who rush around the city making ceremonial visits to strangers. These people abandon their homes to wait around outside their patron's doors. Or they use the praetor's auctions to make shameful profits that will eventually destroy them.

On the Shortness of Life, Section 12 45 of 87
What Matters Most Human Nature
Seneca — The Senator Original

Perhaps you will ask me whom I mean by "busy men"? you need not think that I allude only to those who are hunted out of the courts of justice with dogs at the close of the proceedings, those whom you see either honourably jostled by a crowd of their own clients or contemptuously hustled in visits of ceremony by strangers, who call them away from home to hang about their patron's doors, or who make use of the praetor's sales by auction to acquire infamous gains which some day will prove their own ruin.

On the Shortness of Life, Section 12 45 of 87
Seneca — The Senator

But people who live without chasing after meaningless work find that life gives them plenty of time. They don't hand pieces of their life over to others or scatter it everywhere. They don't leave their time to chance, lose it through carelessness, waste it on showing off, or throw it away on pointless things. All of their time is invested wisely. So even a small amount of life becomes more than enough. When death comes, the wise person won't cling to life in fear. He'll walk calmly forward to meet it.

On the Shortness of Life, Section 11 44 of 87
Death & Mortality What Matters Most
Seneca — The Senator Original

but those whose life is spent without any engrossing business may well find it ample: no part of it is made over to others, or scattered here and there; no part is entrusted to Fortune, is lost by neglect, is spent in ostentatious giving, or is useless: all of it is, so to speak, invested at good interest. A very small amount of it, therefore, is abundantly sufficient, and so, when his last day arrives, the wise man will not hang back, but will walk with a steady step to meet death.

On the Shortness of Life, Section 11 44 of 87
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Ancient philosophy, in plain English.

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