Moral Letters to Lucilius Section 14

Nobis solvi perire est, proxima enim intuemur; ad ulteriora non prospicit mens hebes et quae se corpori addixerit; alioqui fortius finem sui suorumque pateretur, si speraret, ut omnia illa, sic vitam mortemque per vices ire et composita dissolvi, dissoluta componi, in hoc opere aeternam artem cuncta temperantis dei verti.

À nos yeux la décomposition c’est la mort, car nous regardons au plus près de nous ; notre vue obtuse ne va pas au delà, c’est à la matière qu’elle s’attache ; mais qu’on verrait avec plus de courage mourir et soi-même et les siens, si on s’élevait à l’espoir que tout passe ainsi et alterne de la vie à la mort, et se décompose pour se recomposer, et que c’est l’œuvre où s’emploie incessamment la toute puissance du céleste ouvrier.

To our minds, this process means perishing, for we behold only that which is nearest; our sluggish mind, under allegiance to the body, does not penetrate to bournes beyond. Were it not so, the mind would endure with greater courage its own ending and that of its possessions, if only it could hope that life and death, like the whole universe about us, go by turns, that whatever has been put together is broken up again, that whatever has been broken up is put together again, and that the eternal craftsmanship of God, who controls all things, is working at this task.