Quote

45 BC·Rome, Italy

Therefore, young people seem to me to die in such a way that they are overwhelmed by the force of flames when faced with a multitude of waters, while old people die in a manner akin to a fire that is extinguished without any force applied to it; and just as unripe fruit is hardly plucked from trees, but ripe and cooked fruit falls off, so the force takes life from the young, while maturity takes it from the old; which indeed seems to me so pleasant that, the closer I get to death, I feel as if I am about to see land and eventually arrive in port after a long voyage.

Read the source→Cato Major on Old Age (De Senectute)

Similar Thoughts

Luigi Cornaro·1558

Old age, which is dreaded by all men, is to me the sweetest and most pleasant period of my life.

Rumi·13th century AD

I died as a mineral and became a plant, I died as plant and rose to animal, I died as animal and I was Man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?

Yamamoto Tsunetomo·1716

Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one's body and mind are at peace, one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one's master. And every day without fail one should consider himself as dead.

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