Moral Letters to Lucilius Section 10

Ideo propera, Lucili mi, vivere et singulos dies singulas vitas puta. Qui hoc modo se aptavit, cui vita sua cotidie fuit tota, securus est; in spem viventibus proximum quodque tempus elabitur subitque aviditas et miserrimus ac miserrima omnia efficiens metus mortis. Inde illud Maecenatis turpissimum votum, quo et debilitatem non recusat et deformitatem et novissime acutam crucem, dummodo inter haec mala spiritus prorogetur:

Hâte-toi donc de vivre, cher Lucilius, et compte chaque journée pour une vie entière. Celui qui s’est ainsi préparé, celui dont la vie s’est trouvée tous les jours complète, possède la sécurité. Vivre d’espérance, c’est voir le temps, à mesure qu’il arrive, échapper à notre croissante avidité, et nous laisser ce sentiment si amer, qui remplit d’amertume tous les autres, la peur de la mort. De là l’ignoble souhait de Mécène, qui ne refuse ni les mutilations, ni les difformités, ni enfin le pal sur la croix, pourvu qu’au milieu de tant de maux la vie lui soit conservée.

Therefore, my dear Lucilius, begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life. He who has thus prepared himself, he whose daily life has been a rounded whole, is easy in his mind; but those who live for hope alone find that the immediate future always slips from their grasp and that greed steals along in its place, and the fear of death, a curse which lays a curse upon everything else. Thence came that most debased of prayers, in which Maecenas does not refuse to suffer weakness, deformity, and as a climax the pain of crucifixion provided only that he may prolong the breath of life amid these sufferings: