Moral Letters to Lucilius Section 11

Ex hac deploratione nascitur, ut ingrati divinorum interpretes simus; querimur, quod non semper, quod et pauca nobis et incerta et abitura contingant. Inde est, quod nec vivere nec mori volumus; vitae nos odium tenet, timor mortis. Natat omne consilium nec inplere nos ulla felicitas potest. Causa autem est, quod non pervenimus ad illud bonum inmensum et insuperabile, ubi necesse est resistat voluntas nostra, quia ultra summum non est locus.

Toutes ces plaintes font de nous d’ingrats appréciateurs des bienfaits célestes. Nous murmurons de ce qu’ils nous arrivent trop minces, trop précaires, de ce qu’ils nous quitteront. Voilà pourquoi nous ne consentons ni à vivre ni à mourir : vivre nous est odieux, mourir nous épouvante. Toutes nos résolutions chancellent, aucune félicité ne peut combler le vide de nos âmes. C’est que nous sommes encore loin de ce bien immense et suprême où il serait besoin que se fixât notre volonté, puisqu’au dessus de la perfection il n’y a rien.

It is a result of complaints like these that we are unappreciative in our comments upon the gifts of heaven; we complain because they are not always granted to us, because they are few and unsure and fleeting. Hence we have not the will either to live or to die; we are possessed by hatred of life, by fear of death. Our plans are all at sea, and no amount of prosperity can satisfy us. And the reason for all this is that we have not yet attained to that good which is immeasurable and unsurpassable, in which all wishing on our part must cease, because there is no place beyond the highest.