Hold Every Hour
You are not going to die one day. You have been dying the whole time, and most of it is already behind you.
Nobody Wants to Go Back Down
Let me show you in a picture how far our nature is enlightened, or unenlightened — and then let me ask what we owe the people still sitting in the dark.
Nature Did Not Get Careless About the Last Act
You two seem surprised that I carry my years lightly. So let me take the four charges people bring against old age, and show you that not one of them holds.
Poetry Is Truer Than History
I want to take the thing apart and show you how it works — starting with why we enjoy looking hard at what we could not bear to see.
Nothing Is Ours Except Time
You have all the letters now, Lucilius, and you want to know what they come to. Here is the whole of it, before we take it apart.
You Are Not in a Storm. You Are Seasick.
You asked me to name your disease. I can. And I should tell you at the start that the cure is not stillness.
Ask Nothing of a Friend That Would Make Him Worse
My friend Scipio died last week. Everyone wants to know how I am bearing it. I would rather tell you what he taught me about friendship.